


Don't Worry I Will Run With You

by flora_09



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Developing Relationship, Everyone Loves Yang Jeongin | I.N, Family, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Summaries, M/M, Multi, Oblivious!Yang Jeongin, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Yang Jeongin | I.N-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2020-06-02 09:05:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19438273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flora_09/pseuds/flora_09
Summary: Jeongin was out in the fields when the letter arrived.The letter asks or rather commands Jeongin to leave his family to become the town's witch's apprentice. The witch apparently proclaims that the boy is rather special, though Jeongin doesn't feel like one. What meets him in his way to harnessing his own unknown powers is a bond like none other.Or, the story where Jeongin leaves his family only to find another one.





	1. The Beginning And A Feeling Of End

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is obviously my first fic and I'm quite nervous, to be honest? This story was something revolving around my mind for a long time and well I finally decided to write it down. I also want to tell you the other members of stray kids would be introduced after the third or fourth chapter so just know that this is a 'Jeongin and everyone' despite the fact that they don't appear for the first two chapters (sorry for the slow pacing!) Anyways, I do hope you enjoy whatever this is!
> 
> Title of the story taken from Stray Kid's 'Grow Up'

Jeongin was out in the fields when the letter arrived.

Everyone seemed to be heaving through the last bits of their work, tired down to their very bones and hoping to just throw down the bundles of harvest off of their shoulders and run back home. It only took so much time before everyone left on their own way leaving Jeongin alone on the eerily silent farm. He had no intention to go back home though, not before completing his quota of work that he had set. It just so happened that he was sick and bedridden for almost a month meaning he had to make up for it somehow, after all, everyone else had to work extra because of his condition, this was the least he could do for them. His legs were still unsteady, probably due to not having properly recovered yet and his hands were jerking violently as he tried to tie up the bundles.

“Hey, it’s late.” Jeongin turned around hearing that. There stood his little brother, his hair blowing wildly, clutching his jacket hard to keep him covered, only then did Jeongin realize he was shivering due to unusually cold winds going around the town. “Let’s go home, hyung.” He breathed out, his teeth clattering together.

“A little more time, Yohan.” He continued moving the bundles around, “Why don’t you go home while I finish here, yeah?”

“Hyung, you’re shaking, let’s just go.” He spared his younger brother a glance. The moonlight was reflecting on his face, making him look otherworldly, it seemed to further accentuate his soft features and his round cheeks. “Please?” He ended it as a question, his eyebrows scrunching up, mouth morphing itself into a frown.

A sigh left Jeongin’s lips, “Okay, Okay.” A tight-lipped grimace on his face as he threw another and well, his last bundle into the heap. “Stop making that face, we’re going home.” He said, wiping his hands on his t-shirt Yohan seemed absolutely elated at his defeat, jumping towards him and grabbing his hand while leading the way. Yohan turned fifteen this year but the way he acts sometimes makes him look way younger than his age. While he was built like a typical fifteen-year-old, tall and lanky and all about weird proportions, his round cheeks, big eyes, and crooked teeth gave a vulnerable and small feeling to him. Jeongin would be damned if he let anything ever happen to him.

They reached home fairly quick, not like the farm was that far away, but with Jeongin’s legs trying to give up every other minute it took a whole lot more time than it took today. Yohan was happily babbling about his day at school and Jeongin maintained a small smile on his face trying hard not to laugh at his younger brother’s antics. Yohan continued to tell him about Yuvin and how weirdly clingy he was, “Seriously hyung, he held me so close I was--” A sudden sharp yell stopped him mid-sentence, Yohan flinched, turning his head to the backdoor of his home while Jeongin looked at the silhouettes standing in the kitchen most likely the source of the yell. He silently motioned Yohan to not go inside. Their parents were never one to fight especially not like this, it sparked his curiosity. He moved closer to the kitchen window, trying to make out the heated conversation going on between their parents, Yohan quietly following.

“It’s not like we can avoid this! You know what that witch is all about!” Judging from the heavy voice, it was most likely his father, probably pacing around the kitchen like he always does whenever something goes wrong.

“Sorry to break it out to you, but I can’t just let him go!” His mother’s usually soft voice had a slight tint of anger as she spoke.

“Can’t you see, woman? That godforsaken witch will curse our whole family to hell!” His father’s voice constantly kept fluctuating between being filled with defeat and blinding anger.

“Isn’t there a better way out of this?” Another voice joined, Yohan’s eyes widened as he looked at Jeongin. Jonghyun, their elder brother. “Isn’t there a way to pull Innie out of this?”

Yohan shook Jeongin’s sleeves, speaking in a hushed voice, “Hyung, what’s going on? The witch? Why are you involved? Why is mum talking about letting go? She can’t possibly be talking about you, yeah? Yeah?” his voice cracked at the end and it did nothing to calm Jeongin’s erratic heart. He was involved. They _are_ talking about him, about letting him go.

Jeongin grabbed Yohan’s hands into his, “Don’t worry. Let’s head inside, we must be overthinking this, it probably isn’t anything.” His trembling voice probably did nothing to convince his spooked out little brother but honestly, Jeongin himself was a little out of it after hearing all that. He wasted no more time as he stood up, dragging his almost sobbing brother through the backdoor. The wooden floor creaked loudly, making three heads snap up in their direction. Her mother turned back to hide, leaning on the kitchen counter, trying to not make it obvious that she was crying, his father continued to burn holes onto the table while his brother rubbed his forehead and gave Yohan and Jeongin a half smile that didn’t quite reach his tired eyes.

“Hey, you two are back.” Jonghyun greeted, almost as if nothing was wrong, as though these three weren’t trying to scream their lungs out in the kitchen, sounded too fake if Jeongin was being honest, he felt Yohan let out a scowl behind him, “Why don’t you two run up to your rooms? Dinner will take a while today.”

“Yeah, okay.” Jeongin hears his own heartbeat speed up as he tries to restrain Yohan from doing anything stupid, he squeezes his hand as a warning, “Yohan, come on, let’s go--”

“No.” Yohan pulls his hand away from Jeongin’s hold, “What are you gonna talk about Jonghyun hyung? Talk about it in front of us you know?” The snark in his voice makes even Jeongin curl in a bit into himself. His father lifts his head for the first time to glare in their direction, his mother freezes whatever pretend job she was doing and Jonghyun tries hard to not let his smile go down, though the unnatural stretch of his lips at the edges are making it quite obvious that it’s all a pretend game.

“Hey, Yohan, It’s not related to you two yeah? That’s the reason we can’t talk about it with you or Jeongin, now scurry away.” Jeongin noticed how his hyung had his hands balled into fists, knuckles turning white by how hard he was digging his nails into his own hands. He grabbed Yohan again, a little more tightly and when Yohan turned to look at him, he gave him a look, trying to plead to him to not say whatever he was going to but alas, teenage rebellion was still a thing.

“Oh? Is that so? Are you sure hyung this isn’t about sending Jeongin hyung somewhere?” Yohan at this point, stood protectively in front of Jeongin, holding onto Jeongin’s hand and it would’ve been funny in any other situation due to the height difference and Yohan practically looking like a baby but it isn’t, because Jonghyun hyung’s smile falls off his face, his mother finally turns around to reveal her red eyes and gives a pained glance towards them and his father heaves a heavy sigh.

“Jeongin has been asked to become one of the witch’s apprentice.” His father said, as a matter of fact, twirling around the envelope in his hand.

Yohan fumed,“He has been _asked,_ meaning he can decline. Why are we even debating this?” his eyes narrowing down as though everything being said didn’t make sense, as though the answer was right there while the others were stupidly looking for it.

Jonghyun leaned back on the wall, closing his eyes before he spoke, “It’s not as much of a choice if the witch is asking for your presence. She is known for her curses that she casts on families and sometimes the whole of villages if people try to disobey her. The _asked_ is simple formalities,” He glances at Jeongin, “She gets what she wants.” and their mother’s quiet sobs isn’t really helping, Jeongin thinks bitterly all while Yohan stands stunned, trying to make sense of whatever Jonghyun said.

“B-but--” Yohan starts again but this time Jeongin cuts him off swiftly.

“Well, if that’s the case, Yohan’s right. There really isn’t the need for a debate right? The decision’s already made.” He moves towards his father, taking the letter from his hand. He runs his fingers on the soft brown paper, “I won’t be having dinner today, don’t bother making extra, mum.” and with that, he leaves, climbing up the stairs, ignoring Yohan’s screams of ‘hyung!’ and other noises, securely shutting the door behind him.

Jeongin slides down the door. He had heard about the witch, during the time when he visited the market or when the boys were taking a break at the field, wildly guessing what kind of things the witch can do and what on earth would her apprentices actually work on. _The witch_ , he had heard, _was a formidable person to the point, where nobody would even try challenging h_ _er._ Come to think of it, he doesn’t know what happens to the apprentices, do they ever come back? Are they even alive? The rumors say that she kills all of the boys she calls for fun. Even her title is foreboding, hushed whispers and fables going around town were anything but comforting.

Jeongin heaves a sigh, carefully opening the envelope, taking out the pristine white paper from inside before unfolding it, looking at a very cleanly written letter and he would’ve appreciated the beautiful handwriting if not for the content that this letter held. He felt his eyes sting and his insides twisting themselves into knots as he read through the letter. Yes, he was sick till a few days before, he probably still is but not on the brink of death as he was near the beginning of the month, is this why the witch calls for him? Because he’d be an easy prey? She has no reason to know him, Jeongin is good in school—though due to his _plight_ he had to miss school for well over a month and as of now is lagging behind—but other than that there isn’t much to him, he knows no magic like the nobles of the town nor does he have any extravagant skill to identify himself with.

The witch talks highly of him, speaking about things only he’d be able to do but Jeongin doesn’t feel that way, he’s not special, he’s good but average good at best. It seems to be bland flattery, nothing more than pretty words to console him, words he doesn’t need, for if it wasn’t for this letter he wouldn’t have to leave his family and go to a faraway land to do something _only_ he could do, _what jazz._ He doesn’t feel comforted or special or excited at all if that’s what the witch wanted rather he feels bitter. He doesn’t want to leave behind Yohan or Jonghyun, he doesn’t want to not help her mother in the kitchen at the crack of the dawn singing softly together, he doesn’t want to not be able to hear his father’s exaggerated complaints. It’s so unfair to take away his choice in all this. He stands up anyway, not paying attention to the audible conversation downstairs, unlocking the door just in case someone needs anything, he moves to his bed and lays down, the words of the letter imprinting themselves into his mind as he falls into a dreamless sleep.

\----X----

_Dear Yang Jeongin,_

_I know it’s too much to ask for but I’d like your presence here with me, There are things around here which I find you’d be suitable for, things that no one but you can do. I’d like you to believe that you’re one of a kind, Jeongin and I’d like to help you develop further, break your limits. You might not even be aware of the gift you possess, worry not, you’ll figure it out here along with enhancing it. You’ll have other apprentices to help you adjust into your new life, that is if you choose to._

_I wish you do ponder on the choice I’m presenting you with, It would be a great loss for me to not have you here. I am certain that you’ll fit right into the role I’d provide you with, more than that, I’m certain that what we lack here would be fulfilled by you and only you. Give it a chance, Jeongin, I swear on my life you won’t regret this._

_If you do decide to join me, come to the town square in the morning after the summer feast, one of my men will escort you here._

_I hope you choose wisely Jeongin._

_Warmest regards,_

_The Witch_

\----X----


	2. A Pity Party and A Storyteller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yohan and Jeongin discuss things under the comfort of their soft blanket, a few tears here and there.

A slight creak of his bedroom door shakes Jeongin awake from his delicate sleep. He twists beneath his blanket to face the door, only to look at Yohan fiddling with his fingers, seemingly hesitant as he steps back and forth, A fond smile breaks out on Jeongin’s face, “Can’t sleep, Han-ah?”

Yohan’s head snaps up to look at Jeongin, the dim lights of the corridor make it hard to decipher the expression his face holds but Jeongin knows his little brother is seconds away from crying. He huffs a small laugh, it sounds all kinds of wrong, rough around the edges, brittle to its very depth. Jeongin kind of liked and disliked the rawness of it all. “Come in, Yohan, sleep here with me.” and Yohan treads lightly, making sure to not make any noise as though he was making his way towards a wounded animal, trying hard to not scare it away. Jeongin felt like an arsehole that moment, maybe he should’ve been more _n_ _ot_ self-centered. Obviously, the situation was centered around him but he should’ve understood that others are getting affected by all this too.

Yohan silently slips under Jeongin’s blankets, getting as close as physically possible, legs tangling into Jeongin’s, fists curling into his shirt and Jeongin feels warmth settle in his chest as he softly threads his fingers into Yohan’s tangled strands. “Hyung?” Yohan all but whispers as though afraid to speak. Jeongin hums in response, a small sign to convey that it’s okay, that he doesn’t mind. “Hyung, I’m sorry for what happened in the kitchen, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Yohan wobbles out.

“I know you didn’t mean any harm, Yohan, and you don’t need to apologize either,” A small smile breaks on his face, “I decided to throw a hissy fit and honestly, if it wasn’t for you, I doubt we would’ve even came to know about what was going on.” Jeongin feels Yohan’s hands tighten their hold on his shirt, feels him shift, hiding his face in Jeongin’s chest. He lets out a laugh, scratched and clipped but a laugh nonetheless, he feels Yohan smack him too, letting him know that he wasn’t appreciating being laughed at.

“Hyung,” Yohan starts, a strange sort of melancholy suddenly filling his voice, “What did the letter say?” Jeongin’s hands still for a moment, a breath caught between his lips as he contemplates whether he should just stay quiet, not saying anything, pretending as though the letter doesn’t exist and he’s never going to be away for Yohan, _never._ Though soon he continues playing with his brother’s hair, feeling Yohan relax his tense shoulders at the touch, slightly, _just slightly_ , but that’ll have to do.

“As dad said, Han. The witch asked me to come to her, that her apprentice would lead me to her when I go to the town square after the summer feast the next morning.” Jeongin all but whispered, a sudden quietness in his voice, “She spoke highly of me, you know. Talked about how I was special and that she had work for me that no one else could do, that I don’t know about my _gift_ and that she’d help me enhance it.” He felt Yohan lifting his head, probably trying to look at him and understand his expression, though Jeongin’s sure he didn’t have anything on his face other than defeat written in big bold letters, “That would obviously make me happy yeah? I mean I don’t think I’ve heard this high praise of me after that one spring festival where I nailed grandma’s chocolate chips.” A soft giggle fills his room, fills his heart too, with both giddiness and dread. One of his hands automatically move to grab onto Yohan’s smaller ones, to remember that he’s still here, not a dream, that this moment is very much real which reminds him that what happened the whole day is real too, to his dismay.

It’s this sudden conflict inside Jeongin, where everything leads to a painful revelation that he’ll have to leave, each fleeting touch, each word whispered between the two made him feel warm and cold at the same time, as though they were comforting and burning him together. “Hyung,” the word cuts Jeongin’s thoughts, forcing him to finally, _finally,_ look at his brother, his brown eyes filled with swirls of feelings and suddenly Jeongin knows why he was so adamant about avoiding this, “Do you wanna leave?”

_No. Yes. I don’t know._ A buzz settles over and Jeongin has no filter when he speaks, “I don’t know Han-ah. The things she wrote in the letter, she sounded so sincere and the way she spoke as though the decision was all up to me? If Jonghyun hyung hadn’t said what he had in the kitchen, I would’ve believed that the witch wasn’t someone necessarily bad,” He continues staring at Yohan, hoping to deliver all his words with the utmost truthfulness he could, “Honestly, I would’ve been happy even, excited for something new but knowing that all what was written in that letter could just be honey laced words that are all but lies, I don’t know.” and Jeongin honestly doesn’t, in that moment. “I have to go, no matter what though. I can’t have my whole family cursed now can I?” Jeongin finally looks away, eyes looking into their intertwined fingers, “It’s not like I am much of a help here too,” His voice is shaking, eyes blurred, “You know, can’t even function properly after that sickness--” A tight grip on his hands and a hand on his mouth effectively shutting him off.

“Hyung, Why are you saying things like that?” the pure sincerity Yohan’s sobbing voice holds shocks Jeongin to his core, “You haven’t even recovered properly, and we need you here too, you’re kind and hardworking and eager to learn. You’re h-here yeah? How are you not functioning hyung?” Jeongin lets out an ugly sob that he’ll deny ever making in the future as he holds onto Yohan’s hands like his life depended on it and Yohan brings their hands to his forehead, “You’re here, you’re here, you’re here” he keeps on repeating and each time Jeongin breaks a little inside.

“I’m here.” A panicked whisper, “I’m here, Yohan, right _here.”_ Jeongin grounds himself, _he’s here._ He’s here with Yohan besides him, he’s here in his upstairs bedroom that has shelves with books covering the walls; a small desk with paper thrown around, doodles, sketches and scrap words scattered on them; a single drawing stuck on the wall his bed is pushed against, Yohan’s, a stupid five-year-old’s drawing of their family; _Yohan,_ sweet god, Yohan fills up his thoughts, he feels his own heartbeat along with Yohan’s, he hears his own short breaths with Yohan’s slightly more composed ones, he hears his own cries mingling with Yohan’s heart wrenching sobs. _He’s here, Jeongin’s right here and he might not be here for a long time but that’s a matter for another_ _day_ _; for now, he’s here, and that’s enough._ He sniffles, hastily wiping his eyes before grasping Yohan’s hands again, _breathe in, breathe out,_ “Hyung’s here, Yohan.” He says with a strange confidence of sorts, despite his voice cracking in between, “So, wanna hear a story to help you fall asleep?” A noise of affirmation muffled in his shirt and a frantic nod and so Jeongin starts.

A story of sweet lies he builds on the spot, for once in these past hours, Jeongin feels in control holding reign over his own made-up world and people. He always did love storytelling, he could always come up with something, he loved being in control and now in this moment, where he no longer knew what he felt, nor what he wanted to do, a story is what he needed. So, that’s what he did, speaking about people no one knew, people going about their day, special ones, not special ones, his voice turning hoarse but the story nowhere near finished, Yohan’s nods and hums urging him to continue and he doesn’t know who fell asleep first or whether or not the story ended, all he knew as his eyelids fell shut—Yohan tucked safely underneath his chin—was that he’s here but he’ll have to leave and Jeongin doesn’t know how to make peace with that.

\----X----

_It was a stupid day from the start if Henry was gonna be honest._

“ _I don’t wanna do it.” He whined from where he laid upside down (or is it downside up?) on his bed, his feet propped up against the walls._

“ _What do you not wanna do?” A small question lacking all curiosity it’s supposed to have. The speaker quite uninterested. Henry looks up at his roommate who looks perhaps busy in making his tie and getting dressed up for school._

“ _I don’t wanna do anything!” He lets his head fall back again, hitting the bed frame releasing a grunt of sorts followed by a general sigh._

“ _Henry, for fuck’s sake, it’s eight in the morning can we not do this today?” Irritation at its peak as Peter, his roommate, still continues to shuffle around, probably looking for his other sock that’s clearly fallen beneath his dresser that Henry can easily spot from the position he is in but Peter doesn’t need to know that. “You’re the chosen one or whatever bullcrap that is, so do this world another huge favor and fucking get ready.”_

“ _It’s the ‘destined’ one.”_

“ _Did you fucking ignore the ‘whatever bullcrap it is’ part or are you doing this on purpose to piss me off?”_

_Another grunt, though it was Peter that made that inhuman noise this time. It’s not like he’s human anyway, Henry pondered, an exclamation of ‘where is that goddamn socks?’ making him focus on Peter again, the way he speaks though is the best level of human he has seen in this world, Henry adds to his own observations, “Fucking help me, hero!” Peter finally throws down his stuff at his desk, looking at Henry._

_A groan leaves Henry’s lips, “That’s what I don’t want to do!”_

“ _What? You don’t want to fucking find my sock?”_

“ _No,” Henry rolls over, finally feeling the blood rush down, out of his brain, “I don’t want to be a hero.”_

“ _And you were correcting me on the fact that you’re the ‘destined’ one a minute ago? Indecisive much?” Peter finally bends down and searches the floor letting out a quiet but still audible ‘aha’ as he pulls out his sock._

“ _I don’t wanna be a hero just for today, Peter.”_

_Peter pays him his full attention then, a sock in his right hand and his eyebrows raised up, “Is this the destined one trying to convince me to fucking bunk school?”_

_Henry smiles, “Maybe?”_

_-An excerpt from Jeongin’s story that he never finished_

\----X----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know whether I should add more interactions of Jeongin with his family or move through to the day where he leaves. Planning all this out on a whim is hard but I kinda know what I want to go with this. Thank you for actually reading through this! I would love for any kind of comment or suggestion you have!


	3. Confessions And 'I Love You's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeongin spends the day before the summer festival with his family. A whole lot of chaos, love, and emotions revealed, with added bits of a breakdown; It should be weird how appreciative Jeongin feels about this combination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda word dumped, honestly. Totally sorry, for that! Anyways, I decided to show the family dynamics a bit? Well, at least the plan was to show a bit but it ended up consisting 6k words. Seriously, sorry. Also, I'm surprised by how you'll even bother reading this mess? I didn't expect people to even read this let alone leave kudos! You'll are so nice! I'll keep on working real hard to deliver better chapters in the future! Please look forward to it! Love you all 3000!

Jeongin wakes up with his arm numb. He looks over to see Yohan sleeping soundly on the said arm, well, he’ll forgive him because he looks too beautiful. He glances over there intertwined hands, squeezes them, as he sits up gently, making sure he doesn’t disturb Yohan’s sleep, after yesterday he deserved that much.

He quietly does all his morning chores in the bathroom beside his room before moving down to the kitchen. His mother stands there shuffling containers around on the shelf, most likely looking for salt. “It’s not there mum. It’s inside the cupboard below.” He distinctly remembers it as he was the one who kept it there after yesterday’s morning clean up.

His mother visibly jumps, turning back with wide eyes before she sees Jeongin by the entrance, she puts a hand on her heart as she relaxes and lets out a sigh, “One of these days you’re gonna end up giving me a heart attack Innie.” Jeongin giggles, moving forward towards her mother and joins her on the counter, bending to pull out the salt container.

“Here you go.” His mother wordlessly takes it from her hand, stirring the contents in the pan. “What’s for breakfast today?” Jeongin asks, an apple in hand which he grabbed out of the fruit basket, carefully observing it.

“Omelette and apple juice,” his mother peeks at him, Jeongin tries to act oblivious, “Your favourite.” Now see this is the sneaky trick that Jeongin knew all of his family were gonna pull on him until the summer festival came, he wasn’t opposing of the free show of affection he’s gonna get assaulted by for today but Jeongin is hellbent on the fact that he probably won’t enjoy it as much as he would’ve in any other situation because as he stands here in the kitchen with his oh-so-kind mum he knows that this is what he’ll be giving up on in just another day.

He looks at his mother, crunching down on his apple. She looks a little weary, yesterday’s events probably taking a toll on her. She pays extra attention to the eggs being cooked, probably because she wants Jeongin to be fed properly considering he didn’t eat anything for dinner. It’s suddenly the same feeling draping over him like the night before, he feels like an arsehole and he wants to say that _stop. Whatever you cook will be enough, I love you mum. I’m sorry_ but he continues to glare at his apple, a sad smile gracing his lips, “Dream come true, mum. Your omelettes are the best.”

His mum laughs, not totally true but not totally fake either, “You bet. Your Grandma would walk out of hell to whoop me if I didn’t do her recipe justice.” and Jeongin laughs at that too, heart free of the ever-growing dread, _only for a moment,_ but that would suffice.

It wasn’t long after that all of his other family members took their place on the dining table and before Jeongin knew he had finished serving the breakfast alongside his mum and was now sitting at his usual chair. His father sat in the middle, scuffing out insults at the town’s security as he read some article on the newspaper, his hyung, sitting to his father’s left, scoffs muttering a ‘well do something about it if it bothers you this much.’, Jeongin muffles his chuckle, Jonghyun’s always cranky in the morning and his father falters, choking on his tea, probably having heard what he said, “Brat, are you doing your own father dirty like this? This early?”

“As though he doesn’t do it every morning, dad. Hello, mum!” Yohan skates into the kitchen, slamming into his chair stationed to Jeongin’s right side, promptly throwing himself into a coughing fit.

Jeongin briefly hears a ‘brats, I tell you, the whole lot of them.’ mumbled by his father before his mother comes besides him to whack Yohan on his head, “Someday you’re gonna puke out your guts if this is how you keep entering the kitchen and I’ll not clean that up.”

“Mum, that’s gross, we’re eating let’s not talk about intestines and stomach being purged out of someone, yeah? Especially not that rat.” Jonghyun speaks and proceeds to shove more than half of the omelette into his mouth, a loud ‘hey!’ resonates in the kitchen as a response before his mum pulls Yohan’s ear forcing him to sit. He rubs his ear wincing a bit as his mother lets go of it not without sending him a deathly glare though before she settles on her seat besides Jonghyun.

Jeongin has a fond smile on his face as he starts eating his omelette. At least the morning was the usual, his family’s antics the same. He guesses perhaps it’s too early in the morning for them to register properly the events of last night. After breakfast, when everyone’s ready for the day, is probably when it’ll hit how wrong it’s all supposed to be but for now, Jeongin will enjoy the warm company he has.

It’s not all that later though, nobody’s near finished with their breakfast except maybe Jonghyun who moved on to finish his juice after violently devouring his omelette, his dad clears his throat and Jeongin cringes internally, not wanting to hear what his dad has to say next, “Jeongin, you’ll stay here today, no need for you to go to the fields.” and Jeongin bitterly shoves down his comment of _Am I that useless now?_ Along with another bite of his food.

“I’m staying here too! I don’t wanna go to school!” Yohan screams, forcing Jeongin to cover his ears as he watches Yohan spit out some of his food. There’s a reason as to why his mum always told them to not talk while eating.

“No, Yohan.” Their mother puts down her tea, “You’re not missing school, you already did it enough times.” the _when your brother was sick_ definitely going unspoken but everyone kinda knew about it. Love his mum for trying though, forcing Yohan to go through his daily routine would be better for both him and Jeongin, he feels like he’ll make Yohan cry again, he doesn’t want that, plus, this would make it easier for him to settle into his new life, _without you,_ his brain so helpfully added.

Everybody was urging Yohan to go to school, his mother clearing up the plates and counter-attacking Yohan’s points which were subtlety hinting at the fact that Jeongin will be gone in the next two days. Jeongin nudges his little brother and he looks at him with his wide eyes and eyebrows knitted together, “Han-ah, You should go.” Jeongin reaches beneath the table to squeeze Yohan’s hands, “It’ll make me happy, everyone else too, I’ll be here when you come back in the afternoon anyway.” and Yohan squeezes his hand back, his mouth opening before promptly closing again, trying hard to not refuse Jeongin’s words. He leans in, close to Yohan’s ears as he whispers, “Well, Yuvin’s gonna be really happy too if you go, you know.” and he moves back, a small smirk on his face as he watches Yohan’s ears turn red, eyes even wider than they already are, his mouth flopping like a fish. _He’s flustered,_ Jeongin thinks, _I hit quite the point there, I guess. I’ll keep ‘that’ in mind._

Yohan proclaims, “I’ll go!” over his mother’s continuous speech of why he shouldn’t miss school. His mother turns around, clearly confused having not noticed the exchange between Jeongin and Yohan as he pushes the chair, running upstairs to get ready, she shrugs after a while muttering about ‘hormones’ and ‘teenagers’ and whatnot.

His father too moves to his bedroom, leaving behind an impressed Jonghyun and smiling Jeongin on the table. “You’re quite the brat-tamer, Innie.” Jonghyun speaks, his eyebrows raised up and a playful smile on his lips.

Jeongin flashes his braces as he breaks out into a full-blown smile, “I learnt from the best, hyung.” and he watches Jonghyun’s face morph itself from a surprised expression to one of complete happiness as he bursts into laughter.

“Damn well you did, brat.”

And Jeongin’s heart does a thing hearing that. He decides he both hates and loves it.

“Hey, mum?” Jonghyun asks turning around in his chair, their mother humming in acknowledgment, “Jeongin and I will handle the dishes today.” Their mother turns around at that, opening her lips to say something but Jonghyun swiftly cuts in, “Mum, it won’t kill me to reach the fields a bit late one day, plus dad probably doesn’t have anything against it.”

“Well, okay, less work for me.” She moves away from the counter and leaves the kitchen, most likely to go and help Yohan in preparing for school.

“Come on, Jeongin,” Jonghyun stands up suddenly, a new kind of enthusiasm in his movements, all signs of the morning version of Jonghyun lost, “The plates won’t clean themselves now, would they?” Jeongin follows his brother.

“Do I have no say in this?” The smile he gets in return is answer enough.

He does what he’s supposed to do, takes his place besides Jonghyun near the sink. He picks up the plate Jonghyun hands him, rubbing it with the soap before passing it back to Jonghyun who rinses it. They work in silence for a while before hurried footsteps are heard throughout the house making their way downstairs. His father walks out, glancing upstairs before he shakes his head in disappointment, though the small smile he holds on his face as he wears his shoes says something else. Yohan and their mother run down the stairs, Yohan hurriedly forcing his feet into his shoes not bothering to untie his shoelaces. He looks around before, his eyes landing on Jonghyun and Jeongin staring their way before he groans, “Oh wow, he gets to stay. That’s unfair!”

Jonghyun smiles, putting down the plate he was holding, leaning on the counter and staring right into what seems like Yohan’s soul itself, he says, very calmly, “Want me to remind you how unfair I can be, Hannie?” and Yohan lets out a shriek before winging it for the front door, not before screaming a loud ‘bye!’ and ‘Bye, Jeongin hyung!’ his father following suit, muttering a ‘goodbye’ of his own, laughing at Yohan.

“Gosh, does he always need to address you separately?” Jonghyun speaks, faking irritation.

“Well, I smell something, hyung. Smells like jealousy,” Jeongin fakes a gasp of his own, “You reek of it!” he points dramatically towards Jonghyun.

“You wanna catch these hands too, Innie?”

Jeongin involuntarily shivers before smiling, “Love you too, Jonghyun hyung.” He is well aware that Jonghyun can quite easily bury him in the ground by both his physical strength and effortless sentences, the whole town is actually. It just so happens that Yohan and Jeongin both have a habit of running into trouble more often than not, Yohan due to his own reckless nature and Jeongin due to his destined bad luck, it’s often up to Jonghyun to bail them out and they do appreciate his presence both because of Jonghyun’s well-reputed fight skills and word power and Jonghyun being the best big brother they could ask for, with his playful, warm and understanding nature. _Jonghyun’s perfect,_ Jeongin speaks inwardly, _He’s the special one,_ _not you, never you._

“Hey, Jeongin,” His brother starts, “You know dad’s keeping you here because he doesn’t want you to overwork yourself, yeah?” He stacks the plates he rinses neatly into one pile, “He knows you feel like you have to somehow make up for the month you missed and now that tomorrow’s the summer festival you’re probably gonna throw yourself out there like no tomorrow.” Jonghyun sighs in between, “None of us underestimate you, Jeongin. We know how headstrong and dedicated you are, not only towards your work at the fields but anything that comes your way but we would never want you to work yourself away to sickness.” Jonghyun turns off the tap after washing the last plate and then his hands all while Jeongin burns holes at the floor. Jonghyun puts a hand under his chin, forcing Jeongin to look up at him. A questioning look in his eyes, expecting Jeongin to spill whatever he's thinking.

“I feel so useless, Hyung.” Jeongin’s eyes shine with unshed tears, “Especially after than sickness and now, this whole witch thing, it’s like it’s always me bringing bad luck upon us. The witch praises me so much, I feel like a part of me wants to go to see what happens but it disgusts me, hyung. I don’t want to leave this place, I don’t want to leave you all but I don’t want any of you to get hurt either. Hyung, please, I...” Jeongin doesn’t know what he wants to speak, Jonghyun looks at him so fondly, not interrupting him once between what he said and Jeongin promptly bursts into tears, not holding them back anymore as he clutches his brother’s shirt. He doesn’t have to hold himself back from showing how weak he is to Jonghyun. Jonghyun knows, he doesn’t mind.

“I know what you’re thinking there, Innie. This does not make you weak, heck, if I was told to leave you all in the next two days I would’ve been bawling my eyes out day and night, throwing tantrums and wreaking havoc. I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you now, tears are not a sign of weakness, Jeongin, they are just mere responses to your feelings and I know you’ve been shutting your feelings off for a long time now.”

Jonghyun doesn’t bother wiping Jeongin’s tears, he’ll let his brother cry into his shirt until he lets out all of his worries away, “You’re not useless. Why would you even say that knowing how we won’t be able to properly function after you’d leave? Your calm and collected nature is what has kept the family from being at each other’s throat every single second. Your hard work is the reason we got so much more produce from when you joined. You excel at academics. Not to mention, your stories are some of the best I’ve ever heard. I do agree with the witch on the notion that you’re special, Jeongin.” For the entirety of what he says, Jonghyun makes sure to not let his eyes waver anywhere other than Jeongin's, he needs for him to know he means every bit of what he says, “It’s not disgusting to be curious of what you can offer to someone so _untouchable_. Who wouldn’t want to know what powers they hold that even the witch would be asking for? You remain ever the selfless brother, don’t you? We are sorry Jeongin we can’t do anything about it but none of us want to leave you either.”

Jeongin just continues sobbing, clutching Jonghyun’s shirt ever harder than before, mushing his face into his brother’s chest, “I love you, hyung.”

He hears a sharp intake of breath, before strong arms wrap themselves around him, “I love you too, Jeongin.” His brother speaks, his voice making it seem as though the world would fall apart if he didn’t say it right. Jeongin hopes that Jonghyun knew at that moment that how much that single sentence mattered to him too.

They don’t know exactly how long they stand in that kitchen, hugging each other. The only thing they know is that they only pull apart when Jeongin’s calm again and Jonghyun ruffles his hair, “Gotta go buddy.” He says, moving Jeongin’s bangs away from his forehead as he leans in to press a kiss, “Love you.”

“Love you too, Jonghyun hyung.” _So much._ Jeongin waves with a tired smile as he watches his hyung leave.

He moves around the house, not knowing exactly what to do next. It’s just wandering around the storage room when an idea hits him. He calls for his mum from where he stands. It’s not too late when he hears footsteps scurrying around. He shouts, “I’m here!”, continuing to shift things around.

The door to the storage room opens, his mother walks in, a cleaning cloth in hand, probably having rushed to find him leaving her dusting job, he feels kinda embarrassed about his idea as he now sees his mother staring at him expectantly, “I, uhm,” He thinks for a while, fidgeting with fingers, “I thought about making grandma’s chocolate chips, I needed some help finding her recipe though?” Jeongin ends it as more of a question, quietly berating himself inwardly for not thinking through what he was gonna do next when coming up with the idea.

He watches his mother’s face change from an expression of curiosity and mild concern even to one of excitement as she exclaims she’s totally in and that it’s a great way to spend the afternoon. Jeongin releases the breath he was holding in, he doesn’t even know why he was scared in the first place, his mum never really rejects any activity involving cooking and maybe he had a greater advantage this time due to the fact that his level of accuracy is scary when it comes to those chocolate chips and the added factor that he’ll be gone in like two days, if he counts today too, considering tomorrow _is_ the summer festival.

“Well, let’s do it!” and just like that Jeongin and his mother dive straight into the trash collection to pull out his grandma’s recipe book from somewhere around there.

It’s fun, to say the least, as Jeongin releases unmanly shrieks and screams as he comes around the various creatures that made their home in between the trash, his mother equally, if not more, scared and vocal as she fends off the spawn of devils from harming her son. She nearly cried trying to get a huge spider to crawl to the depths of hell and never return. They finally find the recipe book after their hour-long struggle, his mother muttering profanities under her breath and a promise to make Yohan and their father clean this place up as a form of punishment, all while Jeongin just breathes a sigh of relief and as they step out of the storage room it’s like finally getting away from a murderer. Though to be honest, the sheer size of those creatures was probably enough to kill people from a heart attack. His mother and Jeongin share a brief glance, fist-bumping, new respect renewed for each other and a silent promise to not utter a word about what happened inside.

They move on to the kitchen again, taking out the ingredients, luckily having everything they need. So, they spend the first half of the afternoon, engaging in weird conversations about the latest drama in town, Jeongin giving in his own two-cents on the stories, making jokes and telling stories of his own, his mother absent-mindedly mumbles in awe, “So this is why every mother in this town is out for my son.” as his ears turn red, Jeongin would be lying if he said he isn’t aware of all the mothers of the town absolutely adoring him, he’s easy to talk to and always interested in any kind of anecdotes, these mum just want to tell some stories and who is Jeongin to refuse their offer, you never know when you’ll find a real gem. ( _plus_ , he thinks, _he might have a thing for meddling in other’s lives.)_

It’s not long after that Yohan comes barrelling through the front door with a scream of “Jeongin hyung!?”, Jeongin laughs while his mother clicks her tongue in fake annoyance. Yohan’s eyes land on them in the kitchen and he jumps around the table and throws one question after another. Their mother forces him to go up and bathe before she whoops him, her words and Yohan is flying up the stairs, his energy sometimes overwhelms Jeongin, honestly. He shakes his head focusing on mixing the cookie dough, his mum and himself haven’t achieved much, he realizes, there was more talking and less focus.

His mother leaves for a brief while, going to look after Yohan and what he’s up to. They both come down a little while later, taking their seats at the dining table, settling into various conversations that range from ‘how was the day?’ to ‘whether or not aliens invading their town should be considered cool?’ and honestly, all three of them might have dried throats as they still spoke and well, screamed over each other but it’s fun. Living like this is way more fun than Jeongin has ever realized. _It’s true,_ he considers briefly, _the thing people say about not knowing the worth of_ _things_ _you own, the mundane tasks you do, your_ _daily life that’s affixed in space and time_ _until they are at the verge of disappearing._ That epiphany doesn’t sit well with him so he forces it down, listening in to the heated debate between his mum and little brother, letting out arguments of his own. He’ll enjoy the fixed ground beneath his feet until his world doesn’t tilt into the unknown, until the ground doesn’t disappear, he’ll live every moment just as he’s doing now.

It’s how their father and brother enter the house at around six, with Jeongin, his mother and Yohan screaming over each other, trying to decide the best notion presented, while the said notions and the topic most likely long forgotten, it’s a war of asserting dominance now. His father lets out a scoff, his brother looks quite intrigued but he still goes to the bathroom to clean himself up.

They both join the table soon, which was now decorated with a tray full of chocolate chip cookies, the fighting significantly toned down, the frown on their mother’s face and Yohan’s folded arms and (adorable)pout giving the identity of the winner away.

“You all done?” His dad asks, eyebrows raised as he munches on the cookie, making himself comfortable on his chair. Everyone reaches out for them too, making a sound of content as they take a bite each.

“Perfection itself.” Jonghyun whispers, staring at the cookie in his hand before filling his mouth with it in one go.

“Indeed.” His father comments moving on to his third one. Yohan’s too busy devouring cookies to speak anything. His mother's in a state of bliss. Jeongin smiles as he sits down and eats his own creation. He’ll have to give it to himself, they still taste as good, if not better, than they did when he made them during the spring festival. The witch probably wants him to bake her these cookies until the day he dies, he jokes inwardly. Everyone, for the first time during the day, falls into a soft conversation, nothing much chaotic, just letting out everything going in their heads.

His mother then starts preparing the dinner, having gotten carried away and totally forgotten about it. She forces Yohan and Jonghyun to help her as Jeongin and his father make themselves comfortable in the living room.

“I’m dying of boredom.” His father says in an emotionless voice and Jeongin snorts.

“Isn’t your son supposed to say that?”

“Are we gonna limit sentences to an age now?”

Jeongin grins, “Got me there. Nicely played, dad.”

And so his dad continues whining about being bored and how youths like him are supposed to have unlimited energy and as a son he has the great responsibility of keeping his dad entertained. Jeongin’s amused in all honesty, even if this happens constantly he never got used to it, his father’s greying hair still doesn’t stop him from dropping his adult act every now and then. Jeongin loves him like this, actually, he loves his father no matter what. He knows when to be strict and when to let go, when to be thoughtful and when to be playful. His features still sharp considering his age, Jonghyun seems just the younger version of his dad, a mirror image. He does remember his mother telling him about how she had to ‘fight off basically all the women in this town to get her hands on their dad.’ He smiles fondly looking over his dad draped on the couch ungracefully like a child.

“As your father, I demand your attention on me and only me!” His father speaks, suddenly sitting upright and Jeongin is visibly startled before he starts giggling.

“Go ahead, dad. You have my full attention.”

“I’m sorry.” His dad is serious all of a sudden, staring intently on Jeongin, “I don’t want this, Jeongin. I don’t want you to go, _ever_. If it wasn’t for the threat that damn witch forces upon us, I would’ve never in a million years even mildly thought about having to send you away. I’m sorry, Jeongin. _I can’t even do anything._ ” and Jeongin feels his heartbreak along with his father’s voice.

“Hey, dad, it’s not anyone’s fault, yeah? I...I feel like this maybe won’t be as bad as we’re making it to be and anyways, if it does turn out to be bad, you’ve raised me to handle it all, so I’m not particularly worried.” That’s partially true but if a bit of lying is what helps him calm down the immense guilt his father feels (it’s literally wafting off of him, Jeongin can feel it in his bones.) then no harm's done.

“You always did keep everyone else before you. Haven’t changed a single bit in all these years,” His father runs a hand through his hair, “You don’t have to lie to make your old man feel better, Jeongin.” _Damn his dad’s and hyung’s ability to read him like an open book._ “You’ll be okay. We’ll be too. Let’s try not to worry about each other too much when you leave, yeah?” and they both know that that’s not possible, there’s no way they both won’t think about each other at every other hour of their lives. Or perhaps, they’ll settle after a while into their own lives, Jeongin on his own somewhere, his family finally learning to live without him, possibly getting over his existence, “Son, I want you to know we’ll never forget you, we’ll always be waiting. _Always.”_ and Jeongin was quite sure after how much he cried with Jonghyun there was no way he had tears left to spare but he most certainly feels few of them make their way down his cheeks.

“I love you, dad.” He squeaks out, his dad practically jumps over to where Jeongin was seated, engulfing him into a tight hug.

“I love you too, son.” Jeongin’s gotta admit, all the ‘I love you’s today is making his heart feel so overwhelmingly warm that he feels he’s gonna explode. He quite likes, scratch that; Jeongin absolutely loves it.

They both sit there, talking about the latest movies and whatnot until they are called for dinner.

Everyone sits down, falling into silence and occasional banters and debates. Jeongin wishes that he lives in this moment forever positioned between his father and Yohan, Jonghyun and his mother opposite to him, just being themselves. He truly loves them.

Yohan suggests a movie night and everybody immediately agrees. The race to take the comfortable couch was tough, it ends with his mother and Jonghyun winning, Yohan grunts while taking his seat below Jonghyun all while Jonghyun softly kicks him from behind. Jeongin settles in the middle, his dad to his left and they watch whatever movie they blindly pulled out from the collection.

He feels his eyes drooping halfway through the movie.

A blanket is wrapped around him, a kiss on his cheeks, a ‘Love you so much’ whispered into his ears, the soft voice revealing itself to be that of his mum. He snuggles comfortably between his family, the two besides him coming closer, and the two on the couch probably awkwardly draping themselves over him. _Jeongin loves them._

\----X----

“ _You don’t understand!” He throws down the books off his desk, tearing down the posters on his bedroom walls, “I don’t want to go!”_

_He cries on and on, turning around to face the figure in his room, a sob wrenching out of him, “Please make it stop!” He leans back heavily on the wall, trying to ground himself, “Please.”_

_He feels himself being pulled into a warm embrace, “Breathe, you’ll be okay.”_

“ _I can’t. I can’t.” He shuts his eyes, “The voices; They’ll take me away.” He latches onto the figure blindly, “I don’t want to die, hyung. I don’t.” The hands tighten around him. A kiss pressed onto his unnaturally heated forehead._

“ _You won’t go, Jeongin. I promise I won’t let them take you.”_

_At that moment, Jeongin learns to breathe again._

_-A brief conversation when Jeongin was too sick to function._

\----X----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I already said this but it wasn't supposed to go this long. It just so happened that my brother canceled his plans of coming home during this summer vacation and like I totally understand that it costs a great deal of money to travel from his university in another country to our home but I haven't seen him for a grand total of a whole year and eight months and I just miss him so much.  
> So, I was kinda confused about whether or not to include Jeongin's family dynamics in detail but fueled by my angsty feelings, I decided that I wanted to show how much his family means to him and how much Jeongin means to them. Makes the leaving home more emotion-fueled (and well even harder to write.) and sorry for dumping all of this down here, I just wanted to write all of this down? Thank you for reading this story, it means a whole lot to me and just know, I love every single one of you out there!  
> The next update will probably be up in a few days too!


	4. Goodbyes and Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The summer festival's over and Jeongin just floated through his day. Well, the morning after comes and a boy awaits his arrival at the town square.

_Warm._ That’s the first thing Jeongin registers when he wakes up. It feels warm.

He slowly opens his eyes, noticing the blanket wrapped around him. Yohan sleeps oh his shoulder and he briefly listens to the conversation going on right above him. He groggily understands that it’s his dad and Jonghyun, chattering away, a mild comment of ‘don’t get too loud, you’ll wake them up.’ spoken when they get too loud, they adjust their voices to whispers before continuing again. If Jeongin pays attention he can hear her mum singing in the kitchen too, probably along with the radio.

He clutches the blanket tighter. Jeongin absolutely loves mornings like this.

“What time is it?” Jeongin speaks, his voice hoarse and heavy. A sudden silence falls before Jonghyun mutters a quiet ‘You woke them up.’ to which his dad immediately replies, ‘No, you did.’ and the blame goes back and forth a bit as Jeongin slowly gets his shit together, now more awake, “Please, just tell me what the time is then return to whatever it is you both are fighting about.”

“It’s two minutes to ten.” Jonghyun answers.

It seems to take a while for Jeongin to clearly understand that but as soon as he does, he’s jumping up to stand. Yohan quickly scrambles awake, trying to not fall face-first onto the ground and Jeongin looks panicked. “What are we still doing here then? We are supposed to be in the fields. We are so late!” He’s pacing around the room, a frown on his face. How could he be late to work in the fields? He’s already missed over a month of work there, he can’t add more days to that. He doesn’t know why his dad and brother didn’t bother to wake him up and why are they here? Were they waiting for Jeongin to wake up?

“Jeongin.” Jonghyun starts, his eyes narrowed, hands clutching his knees so tight, “Today’s the summer festival.”

_Oh,_ Jeongin thinks and just like that he remembers, _how the hell did he even forget?_ The letter, the witch, yesterday, he remembers it all. It’s his last day with his family. He stares at nothing in particular. He has to leave in less than a day. He feels _empty_.

“Jeongin hyung?” Yohan sounds worried, staring at his brother, watching his panicked expression morph into something so blank. That snaps Jeongin out of his trance, a forced smile on his face as he looks at his brother.

His mother shouts for breakfast, stopping whatever everyone was gonna say next. All of them make their way to the dining table, Jeongin’s dad squeezes his shoulders as he sits down, to calm him down? Comfort him maybe? Jeongin doesn’t know.

It continues like that, Jeongin joining in the chats at the table and eating his breakfast. Everything’s normal but something doesn’t sit right with him. It feels like floating, moving through talks not actually remembering much of anything, he laughs but the next second he doesn’t feel like laughing anymore. It seems like paranoia or dread, or maybe a mixture of both. It’s something Jeongin hasn’t felt for a long time now, not after he went out from the worst phase of his sickness. He hopes the voices don’t come back to haunt him again. Is it stupid to not want to leave this much? To the point where he feels numb? Jeongin briefly berates himself for acting like this on the last day with his family, he knows that he needs to stop acting like...like he’s doing now but he can’t stop this _floating_ feeling. He feels the heavy weight of disgust settling down inside him, _how could someone be so selfish?_ Jeongin hopes he isn’t making it obvious how out of it he really is, he hopes he doesn’t bring pain upon his family in the last few moments he’s gonna be with them.

He laughs like there’s no tomorrow, smiles like an idiot, talks until his throat dries out. Jeongin feels dead.

It’s nearing noon when his family leaves to attend the town fair. Jeongin and Yohan both love the summer one in particular. It includes games and fireworks and apple candies, there’s nothing more they could ask for. They reach the town square fairly quick. The colorful stalls and decorations shining from miles away.

For the rest of the evening, everyone busies themselves playing games, Jonghyun won a teddy bear and gave it to Jeongin. He almost had a mental breakdown then but holding the stuffed toy gave him a sense of grounding. He still doesn’t understand how could one feel so _happy and not happy_ at the same time. Oxymorons were something he had never been good at while studying language, though as of now his entire life seems a big oxymoron, taunting him in a way. He says nothing.

They munch down on apple candies, Jeongin making sure to store its taste somewhere in his mind. He’s not sure how long it’s gonna be until he tastes one again.

Settling down on a mat spread out is when he remembers that it’s night already. They wait for the fireworks to start, everyone talking animatedly about something or the other while Jeongin just lays down, staring at the sky. He’s probably gonna be somewhere new tomorrow, a thought crosses his mind. _I hope it’s a castle,_ he thinks, _I wish I get to dance in an empty ballroom as Belle did with the beast._ Jeongin hasn’t done well with new atmosphere, new destinations, new relationships, basically _new_ in general but that doesn’t mean he hates the concept of something new. New places are interesting to explore, new people are even more so, Jeongin wants to know how they smile or their small habits and knacks they themselves aren’t aware of. Just because Jeongin is shy near these new people doesn’t necessarily mean he hates them. On the contrary, the kind of fascination he has with strangers should be considered creepy. He hopes there will be enough people for him to not feel homesick every passing second. He quietly smiles to himself.

“What got you smiling, Innie?” His mum asks, entering his field of vision, her hair almost reaching his face.

Jeongin giggles, “Just remembered when Yohan set his clothes on fire when we tried to light up fireworks in the fields together.”

“No! We don’t talk about that dark time anymore, hyung!” Yohan protests, jumping onto Jeongin promptly knocking his breath out.

“Nobody’s gonna let you forget your dumb past.” Jonghyun calmly takes a bite out of his muffin.

Their father scoffs, “As though you’re one to talk, Jonghyun. You remember that one time in school where you decided to--”

“Dad, No.”

It’s not a big thing, but Jeongin laughs like crazy anyway. He thinks he has finally lost it and he doesn’t care. If there is less than twelve hours left for him to have these stupid conversations then fuck the world that’s what he’s gonna do. If struggling gets him nowhere then it’s not worth it. All he might do in the next few hours might be nothing deep or emotional or anything, he’ll make sure to do _something,_ the most meaningless conversations held in the next hour would become the most memorable to Jeongin and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise.

They laugh as the sky bursts into colors.

They stumbled on the streets, pushing each other, laughing and shoving, their mother’s reprimands falling on deaf ears and she soon joins them in messing around. They enter their home by eleven. Their voices tone down. A sudden melancholy seeping in.

“I have to pack.” Jeongin mumbles absent-mindedly, staring at the staircase.

“Go ahead,” A nudge on his back by his mum, “We’ll be waiting downstairs, yeah?” Jeongin nods.

Entering his room, he’s quite unsure. What does he have to pack? The witch didn’t really specify anything? Not even how much luggage would be appropriate (though including that in a letter would be weird?) He opens his closet, he has to choose whether he takes a big suitcase or a shoulder bag. _Well,_ Jeongin thinks, _Let’s lay down the stuff that I definitely need to take._

In the end, he settles for a moderately large but not too large handbag and his shoulder bag. He stuffs all his clothes into the handbag, carefully putting down two of his favorite books from his shelf at the very bottom of the bag. His dairy and stray papers on his desk go into his shoulder bag along with Jonghyun’s teddy bear and Yohan’s drawing that he carefully peels off his wall. He takes his pens too, _just in case_. Jeongin might have a slight case of overpacking things but he doesn’t exactly know the duration of his _trip_ this time along, so he has a decent excuse.

When he was satisfied by the amount of the things he had packed—which were not at all few considering how hard Jeongin struggled to close the _damn zip—_ he headed downstairs, a smile resting on his face.

“You sure took your time packing.” His dad said, TV remote in hand as he continued shuffling through channels even though he was staring at Jeongin.

“Am I being accused of something?”

His dad just stares hard, eyes narrowing dramatically. He whisper-shouts, “I’ll keep on a watch on you, young man.”

Jeongin lets out an amused chuckle, “I don’t know what that implies but you do you, dad.”

He sits on the carpet below his dad. Fingers threading into his hair, he finds comfort (equal bits sadness included but Jeongin’s trying to stay positive here.) and everyone surrounds him. They stay like that the entirety of the night, laughing and talking about everything and nothing. Jeongin feels his mouth hurt from how hard he’s been smiling all the while. Even when the dawn breaks and the sun slowly starts coming up, nobody makes an effort to move, though their words take a slightly harder tone, faces hanging a little dull, eyes often times wavering. They know what’s about to come and even if they’ve accepted it, that still doesn’t make all of _this_ any less hard.

It’s not long after that they realize it’s time. Time for Jeongin to go away and so he makes his way upstairs, making sure to run his hands along the rough surface of the walls, opening his slippers to feel the wooden floors of his house. He enters his room. Picking up the bags, he makes sure to feel every surface. His desk, his bed. He makes sure to engrave each feeling into his memory, to always remember where he came from.

It’s hard to stand in the doorway, Yohan begging him to at least let him accompany Jeongin till the town square but Jeongin can’t agree to that, the moment he steps out of his home is when he enters a new life, one without his family always standing by him, he doesn’t think he’ll have the conviction to leave if he goes with Yohan. He’ll run back like a coward, screaming ‘ _to hell with that witch!’_ , he can’t have that now. So instead, they compensate, Yohan hugs Jeongin for a long time, hours? Minutes? He doesn’t know, doesn’t care either. His hands are probably shaking as Yohan silently sobs into his shoulders.

“I’ll miss you.” Yohan said, wiping his tears with the back of his hand.

Jeongin presses sloppy kisses all over his face, “I’ll miss you too, Han-ah. Love you.”

Jonghyun engulfs him into one of his softest hugs, “You’re so brave, Innie. We love you so much. _I love you so much.”_

Jeongin replies with an ‘I love you too.’ before his father throws himself at him, his mother being a bit gentler as she wraps herself around him from behind. His mum kisses him on the top of his head whispering about how he’ll always be her sweet boy and his dad repeats ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’. Jeongin isn’t really sure what he had done to deserve an apology for but he doesn’t have time this time around to question his dad.

Jonghyun and Yohan join in on the hug and Jeongin feels so utterly warm and content. He doesn’t know what deeds ended up making him the recipient of such a harsh punishment, _oh,_ the things he would do to just stay here—to not let the universe so cruelly strip away of the thing Jeongin has treasured more than his life— _but_ unfortunately, letting someone hurt his family is not on the list of those things. Would it be bad to hope for the witch to actually take his life instead of forcing him to live regretting being alive at all?

They all break apart moments later with Jeongin muttering, “I don’t wanna be late.”

He picks up his bag from where it lies beside their shoe rack, he steps out onto the stone path of his house, turning around to have a final look at his family, they wave at him, each trying hard to not break apart, seconds away from bursting out. _It’s then,_ Jeongin knows, _it’s fucking when he waves back that he feels a surge of emotion hit him._ He feels his breath knocked out of him, hands clamping as he retracts them back, his legs shaking, ready to give up as he continues staring. His heart is squeezing so hard, Jeongin thinks he’s gonna die, it’s this sudden wreck in his whole body, he feels it in every part. It’s like somebody’s tearing him apart, limb by limb, organ by organ, it’s not until the familiar sting settles in his eyes that he finally stops staring and turns back to continue on his way.

Jeongin releases shaky breaths, needless to say, he doesn’t turn back once after that.

His bustling town sits ever so silent as he walks to the town square, the decorations not properly taken off. The stalls and colours were still visible from far away. It’s mocking him, the world’s mocking him, probably getting a good laugh watching him suffer. The closer he gets to the colorful town square, the more doomed he feels. The fair which was so loud and crowded yesterday holds no person in sight. It’s a subtle jab but Jeongin feels loneliness seep into his skin and he’s afraid, not ever a wise combination if you were to ask him.

The witch’s man was nowhere to be seen, was Jeongin perhaps too early? It’s morning enough, the sun’s too bright and happy. He drops his bag as he leans on a stall, catching his breath.

“Hey!” Jeongin jumps away from the stall, the voice just behind him. “Oh, Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

A boy stands there, he looks not much older than Jeongin himself. Jeongin freezes, as the boy continues smiling, his features vaguely reminding him of a squirrel.

“You must be Yang Jeongin, right?” The boy effectively jumps over the stall counter. “I’m Han Jisung. I need to lead you to the witch.” He extends a hand towards Jeongin which he stiffly shakes. Jisung probably notices how tense he is yet his smile widen. He briefly reminds Jeongin of the sun, it would’ve definitely been meant as a compliment at any given time but for now, he feels like Jisung would just burn him away, he shines too brightly and Jeongin just wants to cover himself. Hell, the boy reeks of summer itself, the heavy feeling that summer caries with itself, his innocent playful nature, the sense of freedom and youthfulness radiating off of him. Jeongin doesn’t think of these as compliments really.

He hopes though, he could one day, _say those words_ _as compliments._

\----X----

_It’s not as beautiful as people make it to be._

_In fact, summer is anything but beautiful. The heavy smell of it lays everywhere, mixing in with disgusting sweat and questionable decisions._

_The stench of regret after bursting out due to the insane heat messing with your head, when productivity and efficiency go to hell and all you want to do is laze around. As much as Henry hates it there’s something about it that makes him love it as well._

_The magic that comes around with it perhaps?_

_See, there’s nothing quite like summer nights with clear skies, the yellow tones, sun-kissed skins, water fights, the dumbness of youth, freedom, the naive taste of love maybe?_

_A fleeting moment in your lifetime. No summer repeats itself, it’s always new, always._

_The absolute ugliness of not knowing what Henry’s gonna go through gives him an immense feeling of giddiness, it’s only the summer that does that. He thinks, perhaps it’s summer when the fairytales come true not spring. The obvious flaws and imperfections are what makes it so perfect. It’s not beautiful, it doesn’t need to be._

_Or maybe Henry just loves it because it reminds him of Peter. Loud. Heavy. Utterly stupid. Unexpected. He can continue on and on. He just sits there on the campus park, watching Peter continue his football practice, this moment isn’t going to come back. Peter looks at him excitedly after getting a goal in, Henry’s heart does a thing. Peter is the essence of summer stuffed into a human. He doesn’t pray this time around for what he’s feeling to be a summer daze and nothing more. He has a hunch on what it is and he’s coming to terms with that._

_As much as Henry hates it, he doesn’t mind the notion of living in an eternal summer if it’s with a certain someone._

_\--A little something from one too many summer nights in Jeongin’s life_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this chapter came out too late. I had almost finished writing it days before but somehow the file just disappeared? Like I clearly remember saving it but the next day 2,500 words just went 'poof' and this chapter might even seem rushed (I fucked with the tense quite a lot in this chapter if I think about it now) I'm really sorry for that too. I'm back on track! I'll make sure the next update doesn't take this long. After all, the introductions of the members have finally started! 
> 
> Thank you for supporting this story and leaving kudos and comments!


	5. Questions, Answers and A Literal Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jisung takes Jeongin to what is supposed to be his new house. They talk on their way, Jeongin asking questions and Jisung answering them. A surprise awaited Jeongin as they arrived, not exactly the one Jisung planned for.

“Let’s go, then!” Jisung said, signaling Jeongin to follow him and so he does. They move towards a red pickup truck parked at the side of the small road, Jisung takes his handbag and throws it at the back with Jeongin muttering a small ‘thank you’.

They both settle inside the car, Jeongin pushing his bag beneath his seat all while Jisung searches for the keys. A cute smile on his face when he finds it. Jeongin turns around to focus on the window rather than the boy beside him. They start their journey.

It’s not long when the scenery outside blurs into one Jeongin has never seen. His town was small and he had never stepped outside of it once. It still has the same spread out fields as his town, except the road is wider, no house in sight for miles and miles. Jeongin knows each nook and cranny of his town, he knows they left it behind. It’s unknown territory for him now.

Jisung reached out and turned on the radio, a soft song filling the small place of the truck. Jeongin knows the song, it’s the one his mum was always singing. He unconsciously starts humming to the tune, a sad smile on his face. There’s a different quietness to the truck now, Jisung seems to be holding his breath, not wanting to end up disturbing Jeongin. The song ends soon and Jisung hates the fact that it did, he wanted to hear more of Jeongin’s voice.

“You have a nice voice, Jeongin.” He says, a fond smile on his face evident even as he stares on the road ahead. Jeongin snaps his head towards him, he’s glad that Jisung’s eyes don’t leave the road, he’s pretty sure his cheeks are flushed right now.

He turns to look on the road too, “Thank you.”

“I haven’t heard anything other than ‘thank you’ leave your mouth for all the while we’ve been together now.” Jisung laughs, “Tell me Jeongin, how old are you?”

Jeongin wants to reply with _you just heard me singing, I don’t think there’s any need to small talk now_ but he doesn’t, as gloomy as he is, he doesn’t want to direct his anger at someone who did nothing wrong, “I’m eighteen years old.” He doesn’t follow up with the question of _what about you_? He’s tired both of talking (even though he barely squeezed out a sentence) and in general.

“Oh? That means I’m older than you!” _Does it now, Jisung-ssi?, “_ Yay! Now since you’re younger you should do as I say, okay Jeongin-ah? I want you to sing for me!” Jisung turns for a moment to look at him and Jeongin just goes _what?_ And his facial expression must have been something along that line too because Jisung promptly goes into a laughing fit.

“What?” Jeongin asks out loud, a little taken aback by how nice Jisung’s laughs sounded.

“No, it’s just, you’ve barely spoken anything and suddenly you made _that_ face,” Jisung scrunches up his eyebrow, feigning disgust as he tries his best to put on Jeongin’s expression, “I didn’t even think you’d be capable of making a face like that.” He starts laughing again.

Jeongin shrinks a bit on himself, his face red again. He hears Jisung’s laugh die down.

“Jeongin-ah, sleep if you want to. You look dead tired, you actually remind me of one of my friends when he doesn’t sleep the whole night.” _Yeah well, probably cause I didn’t, sleep all night that is,_ Jeongin realizes half a beat later that he said that out loud, “So, that’s why! It’s awful not being able to sleep, Jeongin! It’s gonna take like the next four hours to reach our destination. Might as well catch up on your sleep. You’d wanna be refreshed when you reach, yeah? Everyone would be ready to skin you alive with their questions and whatnot.” Jeongin wants to say that he doesn’t sound that particularly reassuring and it would be better if Jisung termed it right because that’s not something you should say to a boy who doesn’t even know where he’s heading to with a practical stranger.

Jeongin does have a lot to ask, about the witch and what’s gonna happen, you know the daily drills but he thinks that he’s gonna leave that for when he wakes up, he’s too tired to process any information now anyway.

He falls into a dreamless sleep.

The next time when he wakes up he sees blurry structures pass by. Paying more attention he notices cute houses, built at somewhat equal distance, a lawn attached. “Where are we?” He asks, as he moves his arms around, his voice still carrying a tired lilt.

“Oh, you’re awake.” Jisung says and Jeongin can feel his smile without even looking at him. “We’re at the city, it’s at best half an hour away from where we are supposed to be.”

Jeongin hums in acknowledgment, observing the scenery outside the window. It’s a given that the city would be more crowded than a small town. He watches different kinds of structures, different colors, and shapes, some houses are so huge Jeongin can’t help but let out a small gasp.

Jisung shoots him an amazed look which goes unnoticed, “Never been to this part of the city?”

Jeongin suddenly feels embarrassed, “Uhm, actually...I never went outside of my town, so yeah, never been to the city before.”

“What? No way!” Jisung exclaims, “You haven’t seen the city market? Or the murals at the square?”

Jeongin quietly mutters, “No.” as he wiggles his toes uncomfortably inside his shoes.

“Okay then! It’s already decided I’ll be bringing you to the city whenever we get a break!” Jisung already seems excited, blabbering about what Jeongin definitely has to see and try out when he comes here.

“Are you and I gonna stay together?” He asks, it would be significantly harder for Jeongin to be thrown with a stranger, well, Jisung’s still a stranger but there’s something about him that tells Jeongin that he could never mean any harm to him, he feels rather safe with Jisung and considering the circumstances, it’s a good sign?

“Yeah!” Jisung replied, a wide smile on his face, “You’re gonna stay with me and seven other boys.”

_Seven, were...a lot, to say the least_ Jeongin inwardly groaned. “So like, you all lived together before me too? Or is it that everyone’s new? Are you new too?”

“No, I’m not new, I’ve been there for quite a while now. The others aren’t either, though one of them joined like a month before you, so he’s kinda new? And well yeah, people keep joining us and we all live together that’s how it’s been for a while now.” Jisung responds calmly, answering each of Jeongin’s question with as much clarity as he could. _Wow,_ Jeongin thinks. Making friends with people is one thing and having to merge into an already established friend circle is a whole another.

“What do we exactly do?” That question has been bugging Jeongin for quite a while, what it is that he would be expected to do when he reaches whatever this place is, would he have assigned work or something? Jisung lets out a confused noise probably asking Jeongin to explain what he meant. “Well, when we do reach this place, what work am I supposed to do? What work do you all do?”

Jisung takes a moment to gather his thoughts and responds, “There isn’t any specified work? Correct me if I’m wrong but it’s most likely you don’t know what your powers are, so you’re probably gonna get a vague routine to firstly know about that. Felix, the boy who came one month earlier, is also stuck on that phase. We, on the other hand, work on controlling our powers and improving them.”

“Wait, powers? Like magical attributes? Isn’t it only exclusive of the elites? I’m pretty sure I don’t have one.” Jeongin interrogates, his body totally twisted now to face Jisung. He had heard about those wizarding stuff when he had come across an elite of his town. Elites were naturally well off people, huge lands, enough money, good education jazz and well, it is said that only they are capable of holding something as important as these powers.

Jisung scoffs, “The elites do love to pretend like they’re the special ones but that’s not the case. At the end of the day, all they’re doing is _pretending_. Most of them don’t have the powers they go on flaunting about. Plus, magic isn’t something that’s inherited through genes, just cause someone’s parents have powers doesn’t guarantee their children would too.” They exit the city at that, roads growing more quiet and serene, buildings left behind as they slowly start entering into what seems a dense forest. “The witch says that everyone has magic. It depends on whether or not you’re capable enough to look for it. Some discover it within themselves through extreme curiosity while others simply like to live on believing they are normal even if they’re everything but that,” Jisung quietly smiles to himself, Jeongin notices, “And then there are people like you and me, a little leading on and we’ll have potential far great than anyone else.”

There’s a buzzing around Jeongin’s head, the witch, he wants to know more about her, “What’s the witch like, Jisung-ssi?”

“First of all, don’t call me that. I feel like I’m way too old, Jisung _hyung_ works better and the witch is,” Jisung pauses for a bit, “The witch is nice, to say the least. She isn’t what rumors make her to be. You’ll meet her yourself soon too. She usually visits new apprentices quite often, make your own views about her.”

A part of Jeongin is relieved hearing that. The witch is nice and all but he wonders how _nice_ could a person be if they’re taking people away from their family without taking their choices into consideration. An even more pressing matter is that Jeongin apparently can do magic and he’s here to learn how to do it? What exactly is he even gonna achieve learning magic?

Jisung huffs, a hand sweeping through his hair, “I’ll let you know my answers are often less than satisfactory. Honestly, even after all this time, I still have questions of my own. It would be better to ask questions to someone who would have a definite answer.” _The Witch._ “Though, there’s a single thing I’d like to tell you Jeongin. If you can’t bring yourself to trust the witch, which believe me I struggled with for a long time, do trust me and the others you’re gonna meet. We would never hurt you.” _Oddly reassuring,_ Jeongin thinks. For the first time, the warmth radiating off Jisung doesn’t make him uncomfortable.

“Oh!” Jisung’s sincere face melts into one of pure excitement, “Jeongin-ah! You’re gonna be the youngest of us nine!” His voice sounds so pleased, though the content of what he says highly displeases Jeongin but Jisung’s wide smile and glittering eyes make it a little hard for him to retaliate with anything at all. Before he could gather his thoughts, the truck suddenly sped up and skidded on the road forcing Jeongin to blindly get his hold on something. Jisung takes control of the situation in a second or so, though they both certainly did see their lives flash by. They both release their breaths at the same time.

“Sorry, I tend to mess up when I get excited.” Jisung laughs out and Jeongin scratches out what he thought earlier. _Jisung hyung might not mean any harm to anyone ‘intentionally’_ _but if he does this every time he’s excited—which might be a whole lot of times—unintentionally’ he might just kill someone_ and Jeongin’s not all enthusiastic about living his life on the edge.

He fails to notice though, he’s already slipped into calling Jisung ‘hyung’. Jeongin might not be as tense as he initially thought he would be. _Progress?_ Maybe.

They stop in the middle of the woods shortly after, the forest becoming too thick for the truck to go anywhere further. Jisung moves out, announcing they’ll have to continue on foot from there. Jeongin hops out too. He tries to grab his stuff but Jisung easily takes it before him, he complains about ‘what kind of a hyung would he be if he let Jeongin carry those heavy bags?’ when he listens to Jeongin’s protests. He grumbles gibberish as he follows Jisung into the forest on a narrow, almost unnoticeable trail.

Jisung talks about _everything._ Asking questions and answering them himself. _“What’s your favorite color?” “_ _Pastels, probably? You’d look so cute in blue, especially pink!”_ He gushes on himself. Jeongin promptly does answer his questions once in a while after he’s done guessing, finding himself smiling more often than not at his hyung’s eagerness. Jisung’s warmth isn’t as suffocating as it was in the beginning. _Reminds him of people he doesn’t want to remember_. So, he buries that resemblance away for now. He focuses on Jisung’s stories, which to be honest, are _very_ amusing.

They halt out of nowhere. Causing airheaded Jeongin to bump into Jisung.

“Woah, careful there.” Jisung stays, grabbing Jeongin’s arm to prevent him from falling right onto his face.

Jeongin wiggles his toes inside his shoes as Jisung lets go, “Why did we stop, hyung?”

Jisung lets out a lovely grin probably at hearing Jeongin address him as ‘hyung’. He feels his cheeks heat up, isn’t that what Jisung wanted him to call him? Is he actually that happy for a small thing like that? “Well, Jeongin-ah, what I’m gonna say is something you need to remember clearly,” Jisung’s expression turns serious, “There’s a barrier starting from the line drawn here.” Jisung says while gesturing to the ground, it’s then Jeongin notices the faint white line, “It’s for protection. Even though nobody comes into the woods this deep, we’d better be safe than sorry. But yeah, you can’t cross it without an item of sorts, like this,” Jisung holds up his wrist with the dangling bracelet, “So, anytime you want to leave you’ll have someone accompany you until our friend makes you an item too but I want you to remember that the woods are anything but safe after nightfall, not only that, due to certain _complications_ the barrier can only prevent people from entering. Exiting the barrier is not prohibited, so let me say this if you were to exit the barrier you’d be lost in the woods with no way of coming back unless somebody comes to find you.” Jisung’s tone makes it clear how important this warning is supposed to be, “While it’s not an idle situation at any given time, nightfall is definitely when you need to avoid it no matter what, a mistake like that can _easily_ cost your life.”

Jeongin does have questions but he chooses to keep his mouth shut after muttering an affirmation to Jisung. He does need explanations to quench his curiosity but if happy-go-lucky Jisung is this serious than maybe he’s ready to throw the conversation away for now.

Jisung claps his hand together, smiling brightly again, “So, let’s head inside!” The sudden changes in his demeanor overwhelm Jeongin but like is there any way a person can be overwhelmed in a not so bad way? Because Jeongin is definitely not the bad type of overwhelmed right now.

He’s supposed to be nervous but with Jisung he’s not as much. He thinks that even if he’s stabbed to death if Jisung’s beside him, he’ll die a bit happier. A weird thought to have about an almost stranger but blame Jisung and his aura for that.

Well, the garden’s huge, Jeongin notices. In contrast to the almost intimidating woods, the place beyond the barrier is utterly sophisticated and fancy, to say the very least. It’s properly trimmed, well maintained, if his eyes are working properly he sees an array of colorful flowers in the distance. He follows Jisung on the stone path. This place was oozing royalty in every term. He couldn’t help but let out little gasps of awe every now and then passing through beautiful statues and trimmed plants.

Jisung laughs as he walks ahead, “That’s a tame reaction. Imagine when I first came here.” Jeongin holds back his snort, he can practically hear Jisung screaming and running by him, pointing at everything and letting out various noises. “Though, here’s the grand show.” Jisung says smugly, pointing to his left. Jeongin’s mouth falls open.

There stands a huge house. Even the wealthiest of elites might not be able to dream of the place that’s in front of him. It’s not a castle, for sure but it’s not your everyday cottage either. Vines fall down the roof, some holding flowers even. A willow tree right beside it. Jeongin might have forgotten how to breathe as his shoulders dramatically fall.

Jisung grins, holding Jeongin's hands and dragging him closer to the house. Jeongin’s still awestruck.

“We’re finally here! Welcome, Jeongin-ah.” Jisung smiles, a fond look on his face as he stands in front of the door. “ _Expect a very warm welcome!_ Everyone’s inside--”

Jisung’s sentence is cut short by the sudden loud noise, Jeongin snaps out of his trance while Jisung’s eyes widen before they both glance through the window beside the door. An orange hue shades a distant room, Jeongin can briefly make out figures running around. A distressed scream and jumbled noises coming from inside. Jeongin’s sure he hears a shout of, ‘not fucking again!’ from inside. It clicks soon as he stares at the orange and yellow stuff and people bringing in buckets to throw something (water?) at the _stuff_.

It’s a fire.

He turns to Jisung with a worried look. He thought that Jisung would be worried too, for the sudden fire or at least the fate of his friends inside but all Jisung does in shake his head in disappointment.

“Well,” Jisung sighs, “I wasn’t expecting those idiots to take the _warm welcome_ part all that literal now.”

\----X----

“ _People, listen!” Jisung screams from the doorway._

“ _Can you for once not make me go deaf, Jisung. Really would appreciate it.” Changbin grunts from where he sits at the sofa._

“ _Oh, shut up, hyung.” Jisung rolls his eyes and starts speaking again effectively cutting Changbin off, “I’m heading out to bring the new kid here! I’ll be back by tomorrow evening, that gives you all enough time to plan an elaborate welcome ceremony. So be prepared.”_

“ _Of course we will. What do you take us as, Jisung hyung? Ill-mannered fools?” Seungmin chirps from the staircase._

“ _Yes.” Jisung blankly stares at him._

“ _Thank god, we get enough time to prepare.” Woojin emerges from the kitchen, “You’ll better behave, Felix’s party was a disaster I want to forget.”_

“ _Honestly, I had fun watching the chaos unfold, hyung.” Felix says, laying across Changbin’s lap, not even looking up from the book he was reading._

“ _Yeah well, everyone’s not a devil’s spawn like you, Felix. I don’t want the new boy too scared to even talk to us.” Woojin responds._

“ _Whatever, guys I’m heading out. Bye! Miss me!” Jisung stuffs his feet into his boots and throws the door open._

“ _We’ll do better at the 'welcome' part this time around, now go!” Seungmin reassured._

_The door closes behind Jisung._

_\--A word that surely wasn’t kept by Jisung’s friends_

\----X----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for not keeping up with the date I had set for this update. As I explained in a comment below, my cousin got into an accident, so I had been running around the hospital for the past few days. She's okay now so I'm back on track too.
> 
> The next update would be up soon, though I'll not be giving an exact date, my bad luck with due dates has reached an entirely new level.
> 
> Thank you for leaving comments and kudos, I love you all!


	6. Magic and Fairytales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeongin meets the other boys, though one of them isn't as welcoming as others. Cue, Hwang Hyunjin, books, and magical powers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has become quite the pattern but sorry for this late update. My dumbass forgot or well honestly procrastinated about the whole week of competition so I had to do last-minute preparations and stuff. I hope you enjoy reading it.
> 
> Thanks for all your support! Love you all!

Jisung sighs.

He nonetheless knocks on the door, beckoning Jeongin to come closer. Moments later the door is thrown open, a disheveled boy opens the door, panting. He stares wide-eyed at Jeongin before his eyes land on Jisung and recognition flashes on his face. He turns to look at Jeongin again, now a bright smile on his face, eyes turning into crescents.

“Hello!” He says, enthusiastically, opening the door wider, “Come in!”

Jeongin turns to Jisung, asking for some sort of affirmation, which he gets when Jisung mouths, “Behind you.” as he gestures to the door and so they enter.

It may sound stupid but the first thing that Jeongin made up about the place instead of registering the now lessened but still prominent fire was the fact that it felt like _home_. He could feel the warmth (literally too, taking the fire in account.) wafting off of the place, the walls holding pictures, not framed, a chaotic placement if Jeongin was being honest, of various boys, in pairs, alone, all together. It felt like Jeongin was invading a family’s personal space. He could see the living room from where he stood, mismatched pieces of furniture and decorations as though it was made to be tailored to the tastes of not one but multiple people. It wasn’t just a house to provide shelter to boys, it felt like their home and Jeongin doesn’t think he’ll ever fit in, he doesn’t think he’ll ever call it home.

He ignores the small part that wants to learn how to.

“Like our place?” The smiley boy asks, Jeongin didn’t notice it earlier but his soft features don’t match his deep voice. It’s not weird or unsettling par say but it’s startling. He imagines sweet little Yohan with this voice and almost lets out a laugh, Yohan would scream around in this deep voice, probably sounding more like a demon than anything. He visibly flinches seconds later, realizing that Yohan’s not here, he’s not gonna be with Jeongin _ever_.

Jisung and the smiley boy silently watch Jeongin’s soft smiling face morph into something entirely different. If Jisung were to describe it, it would be like somebody snatched his favourite candy from his hand, Jeongin’s face turning sour. Jisung and smiley boy share a look, smiley boy looking slightly sadder.

Jeongin remembers that he has to answer the question but isn’t it too late already?

“I’m Felix.” The smiley boy extends a hand towards Jeongin. The name rings in his mind, he’s definitely heard Jisung mention it before. He remembers soon, _Felix, the kinda new boy._ Jeongin shakes his hand. He almost forgot about the fire, so when he sniffs a charred smell, Jeongin was surprised before he remembered again. ~~Smiley boy~~ Felix notices that and lets out a giggle, “Rest assured. It’s a normal occurrence here, the sooner you get used to it, the better!” He laughs out, his face bright, Jeongin guesses he’s thinking about the times it has happened before. It’s bizarre how laid back both Jisung and Felix are about the whole situation but he guesses that it would happen to him too once he starts living here.

Felix pouts, “You never told me your name.”

"Jeongin" He breathes out, "I'm Yang Jeongin."

  


Felix has a fond look on his face. A shout of 'It's over!" heard before five more boys come barreling towards the corridor, some slightly too excited, others barely keeping up.

  


One of the boys literally slammed into Jeongin, sending him stumbling before he regains his balance. The boy holds onto Jeongin's arms, he looks up at Jeongin and grins sheepishly.

  


Jeongin sucks in a breath. The boy's black hair is tousled and messy, his eyes narrow and sharp, a mole just beneath it. He's one of the most ethereal beings Jeongin has ever laid his eyes on, he can't wrap his head around the boy's beauty.

  


"We're sorry for that mess." Another blonde guy commented, forcing Jeongin to focus on him instead. The pretty boy scrambled away, most likely embarrassed as a pretty red-tinted his cheeks. In Jeongin's humble opinion, the boy looked even more enchanting. "Honestly, we were just trying to bake cupcakes for you and if not for a certain _someone,"_ the blonde pointedly stares at the pretty boy, "It would've ended a whole lot better." The boy gives an apologetic smile in return.

  


"Well, moving on," another boy continued, _there are a whole lot of boys here,_ "Let's just move on to introductions." He flashed Jeongin a warm smile, his features akin to that of a bear. "I'm Kim Woojin, the oldest around here. If you ever need something come to me, yeah?"

  


Woojin stares at the blonde guy, who smiles too, his dimples becoming visible, Jeongin feels like he melted a bit, his insides all squirming. "I'm Chan. Bang Christopher Chan. Nice to meet you." _An elite,_ Jeongin thinks. He has heard that elites were arrogant and as Jisung said pretentious but Chan didn't seem like one as he stands there smiling the prettiest smile. _Cute._

  


"We call him Crispy if that works for you." Jisung chimes in beside him.

  


"Yeah, Jisung, just steal Changbin's joke and label it as your own. Real sneaky." A boy laughed, comfortably leaning on the wall, he turns towards Jeongin, "I'm Lee Minho by the way. Welcome to the hellhole, Jeongin." Jeongin muffles a snort while he hears various protests around him.

  


A boy pushes through everyone else, grumbling, "It's true anyways. I'm Seungmin, the sweetest one." He grins, animatedly shaking Jeongin's hands. Jeongin must be dreaming but he sure heard Woojin mumble, 'as if, you fucking satan' from where he stood pushed to the side.

  


"Are you conveniently gonna ignore the fact that more than half the times when anything goes wrong it's your fault?" Minho asks and Jeongin can feel Jisung heavily shaking his head in favour besides him.

  


"It was Hyunjin's fault this time around though?" Seungmin retorts.

  


"Oh, wow! Is _this_ how much our friendship means to you?" The pretty boy looks offended, releasing what Jeongin assumes an overly exaggerated sigh for dramatic effects. Chan coughs a bit, forcing Hyunjin to stop glaring at Seungmin. He releases a sigh again before focusing on Jeongin, a smile on his face, it's not even possible to look that entrancing, "Sorry for earlier and for kinda ruining the cupcakes, I didn't mean to." And Jeongin rushes to say it's fine, "I'm Hwang Hyunjin. Let's get to know each other!" He chuckles and Jeongin's heart might've skipped a beat.

  


Jeongin feels an icy glare land on him and he suddenly shivers, looking around he stares right into this guy's eyes, he's intimidating. As he continues to stare him down, Jeongin has a feeling that he might not be as welcomed as he thought he'd be. It's obvious really, as the boy continues to look at him with distaste, if this is as much home as Jeongin assumes it to be then he is _indeed_ intruding, to not like it is normal. It dawns onto him that there's no reason for anyone in this room to be nice to him and yet here they are. It's a feeling of immense guilt paired with a jolt of anger, at the guy, the witch, _the world_. He grows tense, the warmth seeping out of his being. He wants this guy to know that he doesn't want to be here too, it's not his fault. He was never provided a choice, he has lost something that meant the world to him. Staring into the guy's dark orbs and sharp features, all Jeongin wanted was to go _home._

  


_He wants to be at home_.

  


Felix holds his hand, twisting his small fingers into Jeongin's. Felix gives a tentative glance towards him, his hands are warm, not enough to provide Jeongin the warmth he felt before, the warmth he wishes for but Jeongin releases the breath he was holding anyways.

  


"Changbin hyung, say hello why don't you?" Felix carefully mutters, his voice having an edge to it, a more threatening undertone than anything. The apparent Changbin just scoffs and leaves. Jeongin's shoulders fall a bit, confusion and hurt probably evident on his face, it's hard for these boys, he does understand, but it's hard for him too. It's then that Jeongin realizes the silence around him, it seems that everyone holds a solemn expression, some understanding, some a bit mad tottering on the line of pity all together. Hyunjin grabs his hand out of nowhere ripping him away from Felix who just stares where Changbin stood, a disappointed but sad look on his face. Hyunjin pulls him along yelling, "Guys, I'm taking him out to tour around the place. Will come back a bit later." Jeongin ignores the discreet (but not so much) glance back at the lot Hyunjin gives while everyone else just mutters lifeless affirmations.

  


They are out of the door in seconds. Jeongin allowing himself to dragged where ever Hyunjin wants to take him to, just barely holding back tears, _just barely._ They walk in silence, Hyunjin's tight hold melting into something more gentle and comfortable as they move further away from the house. Jeongin on the edge, the thing is that Jeongin tends to bottle up his feelings a whole lot and it just so happens that everything is too much today, he's slipping, he knows that. _He breathes. In. Out._

  


They stop at an archway, the one Jeongin spotted being filled with flowers. Hyunjin gently pulls him inside and Jeongin would've appreciated the beauty, drooled at it even but he felt a bit out of it as of then. Hyunjin vaguely gestures at the swings and Jeongin absent mindedly follows, taking his place at one of the swings as Hyunjin then snugly settles on the other one. Jeongin notices the rows and rows of beautiful flowers, dancing around in the slight summer breeze. He rests his head on the metal bars as he stares into the arrays of colours around him.

  


"You know," Hyunjin starts, a sad smile on his face, "Changbin hyung grew these himself." Hyunjin turns to look above, "I know growing flowers isn't enough to compensate for the way he acts sometimes but I just want you to know he doesn't dislike you or anything." _His actions said otherwise though,_ Hyunjin laughs, "He does tend to do _things_ that are less than kind or polite. Do know he doesn't often mean what he says or shows." Jeongin's cheeks heat up, he can't believe how easily he says his thoughts out loud, "He has _complications_. His story is not mine to tell, so I'll leave it at that. He'll come around in a while, he's like that with everyone." Hyunjin shifts his eyes from the clear sky to Jeongin, "So, enough about Changbin hyung, I'd like to learn more about you for a change."

  


Jeongin holds a small smile, "What would you like to know?"

  


" _Oh, whatever you think is most befitting of me to know, poppet."_ Hyunjin holds a sly smirk.

  


Jeongin lets out a grin of his own, _"Well then, I'd suggest we rather start by establishing my name's Jeongin and you better hold back that tongue of yours, wouldn't want to get hurt now would you?"_

  


Hyunjin's eyes are widened, his mouth stretched around the corners, smile so big, "You've read _My Poppet?_ "

  


Jeongin gives him a smile of his own, "Why yes, I have."

  


"Oh my God," Hyunjin exclaims, "You are into reading?"

  


"I'd say yes."

  


" _Finally."_ Hyunjin claps his hand excitedly, laughing, "I've been waiting all this while for someone, _anyone_ , that I could gush to about _Poppet_ and _Ella_ and _Cherry."_

  


Jeongin jumps off the swing, walking some steps back to the middle of the flowers, mindful to not step on any one of them, he turns back to Hyunjin, he puts on his best act, remembering the lines he must've read a thousand times, re-read it a dozen times more because fairytales were just that enchanting, _"You're the one."_

  


Hyunjin stands up too, _exactly_ _as the scene goes,_ hands finding their place on Jeongin's shoulder and waist, _"Why then, if that's what my highness says, then I shall be the one."_

  


Jeongin just stares up into Hyunjin's soft eyes, if only for a moment, Jeongin feels the kind of warmth he wanted, the kind of warmth he needed, dare he say he feels at home, the telltale signs of the stinging eyes and flopping mouth register in his mind, he doesn't cry instead he leans onto Hyunjin's chest and laughs, not as pretty as Ella does in the fairytale but Jeongin could _never._ He feels Hyunjin's chest move too, he laughs with him, he feels it before he hears it. If a stray tear or two make their way down from his watery eyes, he says nothing, for it never happened if no one else knew.

  


Jeongin moves when his eyes are dry, Hyunjin shifts his hands to thread into Jeongin's fingers, "You're suddenly my favourite." He whispers and offers his arm to Jeongin and he giggles, "Now come on, _Poppet_ , I have a tour to complete if I remember correctly."

  


Jeongin immediately holds onto his arm, "Lead the way." They both laugh as they move out of the garden.

  


They slowly move around the stone path, hand in hand, "Jeongin-ah, is there anything you'd like to know? I remember how confused I was when I came here, it's obvious you'd be too, I'd like to be of any help possible." Hyunjin offers.

  


_Oh, your presence helps enough_ is what Jeongin thinks but he quietly focuses on things he is curious about, "Well Hyunjin hyung, what powers do everyone around here have?"

  


Hyunjin's a bit startled but regains his composure soon enough, "Wow, didn't expect that to be your first question."

  


"I already bothered Jisung hyung with the ones you were expecting."

  


Hyunjin grins, "Okay, so I have elemental powers most likely."

  


"Most likely?" Jeongin repeats.

  


"Most likely. When I came here I was well aware of my ability to play with the wind but after going through what you'd call drills we discovered that I could even handle fire." He rubs his neck a bit, "Albeit I can't control it properly yet, it kind of gets out of hand in accordance with my mood and well, the result was the disaster seconds before your arrival."

  


Jeongin lets out a small gasp and muffles his giggles, "So, it was you."

  


"It was me indeed." Hyunjin winks, "Then, Seungmin is a necromancer of sorts, dark magic and dead beings and charms, I'd call him a witch but he prefers to be called a necromancer instead, not like I know much of the minute differences anyway."

  


"Moving on," Hyunjin stops by to pick a flower from the bush beside them, he twirls it around in his hand, "Woojin hyung has the coolest description honestly, _The keeper of lost things_ , nobody can tell me that's not cool! Quite literally he keeps all the lost things, nightmares thrown away by dreamcatchers, lost sleep, snippets of memories and more physical things that people tend to lose hold of. You'd like to see him work his magic, it's beautiful."

“Minho hyung works with runes, his family has a whole line of runecasters, he’s one of the best apparently.” Hyunjin aggressively runs the flower between his fingers, pinching off the long twig along with it, “Jisung hyung delves more into divination magic, none of us know much about it, not even Jisung himself, he often just experiments around, trying to find his limit or just figure out his roots or something along those words.”

Hyunjin softly brushes Jeongin’s hair, his finger lightly moving his bangs sideways as he adds the flower into his hair, his soft unruly curls falling just short enough to not entirely cover his vision, Jeongin baffles a bit at the pure show of adoration, struggling to form words he blabbers, “W-what about Chan and Changbin hyung?”

Hyunjin slips his hand away, starting to move again, “Chan hyung has the ability to control the flow of people around him.” Jeongin hums in confusion, “As in, Chan hyung can grasp onto the emotions swirling around him and twist it to his own will. Calm people down when they’re ready to fight, rile them up if needed. He draws his own energy from the crowd and uses it against them. It sort of is confusing but let’s just say he has the _leader_ ability, he’s also probably the one who has almost totally controlled his powers.”

“As for Changbin hyung,” Hyunjin pauses for a bit, “He can speak lies effectively to get what he wants.” Jeongin curiously stares on, “Things he shouldn’t be aware of, things that he has no idea about, he can confidently speak them when he feels the need to. His mouth works on its own to get him exactly what he wants if he needs it that bad.” _Oh._ “He oftentimes grows silent when his feelings run berserk, he doesn’t want to hurt anybody and he knows opening his mouth would lead to him doing _exactly_ that. All of us just stop pushing him whenever he goes too quiet.” Jeongin just nods, maybe Changbin just remained silent so that he wouldn’t utter something that would hurt Jeongin and maybe Jeongin’s eternally grateful for that.

“I think this much is enough for today, _Poppet._ ” Hyunjin stops in front of him, “Let’s head back, you must be hungry, the dinner should be ready anytime now.” Jeongin blindly stumbles behind him.

They re-enter the house, everything seems calm and settled down, a distant chatter in the kitchen Jeongin guesses and the buzz from a radio nearby. “Dinner’s ready!” somebody yells, from the voice Jeongin guesses it’s Woojin.

Jisung and Felix jump out of the living into the corridor, “Somebody’s gotta go and grab Jeongin and Hyunjin.” Jisung hollers.

“Actually-” Hyunjin is cut off by Felix jerking hard and letting out a shrill scream. His spooked out eyes land on the other two and he calms down, forcing a deep breath and then glares at Hyunjin.

“ _Can you not?”_ He says.

Hyunjin just smirks, “ _Can I not_ what?”

“Not fucking kill him with a heart attack, that’s what.” Jisung snorts, aggressively petting Felix’s head.

Woojin promptly appears from thin air and swats Jisung on his head, “First of all, _language,”_ he ignores Jisung’s overbearing dramatic cries of pain, “And second of all, everyone’s waiting come and eat.” The four easily follow Woojin into the dining room (?), it’s really just a table in a somewhat rather empty room, somehow appearing overly cramped due to the fact that eight—now nine—boys eat at it. Everybody takes their seat somewhere on the four empty chairs, so Jeongin does the same where he ends up between Seungmin and Felix.

It’s almost night now, Jeongin notices as he glances out of the window, the sun nowhere to be seen, purples and dark blues now swirling around in the sky. His first day here is almost over.

_Almost._

\----X----

_Their home returns to its usual clattering and bangs after Jisung left._

_Changbin and Felix continue to rest on the couch, too comfortable to move away from each other._

“ _Hyung,” Felix starts, folding the corner of the page he on and keeping the book on the table, “You would act better this time won’t you?”_

_Changbin sighs, “I don’t know, Felix.”_

“ _Why not?”_

“ _You know I don’t like new people.” Changbin stares apprehensively at Felix._

“ _You like me now don’t you?” Felix sits up, his eyebrows twisted up, “Hyung, you didn’t even look my way when I first came. I thought you hated me.”_

_Changbin’s head hangs down in disappointment, “I know. I’m sorry.”_

“ _No!” Felix quickly responds, “It’s not something you’ve to apologize over, hyung. We’ve already been through all that.” He grabs Changbin’s cheeks and forces him to look up, “It would be hard for someone who just left their family to come to a house with people who hate them, won’t it? It was hard for me but you did make it better later. All of you did but I can’t forget the first week I spent thinking you hate the thought of me just breathing even if that was literally the opposite of what you felt.”_

_Changbin just stares on, mouth opening and closing and it takes him a moment to speak, “I can’t promise anything but I’ll try my best okay? You’ll have to give me some days.” Felix smiles brightly hearing that. His face completely dazzling as he happily claps, Changbin chuckles, “But I swear to god if he does anything that’s out of line or mean-”_

“ _Oh hyung! As if the witch would even think about sending a prick to us.”_

“ _True enough.” Changbin shrugs, “Thanks for understanding, Lix.”_

_Felix just snuggles close to him, “No, thank you, hyung. I know how hard it is for you too, you’re amazing.” Changbin presses kisses onto Felix’s head all while he giggles, “Love you too, Changbin hyung.”_

_-A promise Changbin has to keep_

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the next update will mostly like be in the latter half of next week because my school holds this mandatory leadership camp and I have to go. I mean I just came back from the competition yesterday night but I leave tomorrow so whatever. Not only that, I missed school for the competition jazz and now I need to make up for it, so even when I come back from the camp all happy, I'll have this pile of work waiting for me.
> 
> On a very bright note though, the competition was held in The Hague, Netherlands and well it just so happened that my parents and I went to Amsterdam on 27th July, the pride walk day! Even though I wasn't aware of it and came after it ended, I still saw people wearing rainbow stuff and having the pride flag and I don't know I was so utterly happy? Living in a country where talking about LGBTQ+ is a taboo let alone being one, I've always found it hard to find acceptance both from myself and others but seeing people there blatantly showing their support made me feel at ease. Kind of like, it's okay to be what I am and it's been a long time but I'm finally coming to terms with that.
> 
> I never knew these small things like wearing a T-shirt with a rainbow on it, or just having a small flag tagged on a bag could make me feel so immensely happy and accepted and like to the people out there who take part in pride walks and just stand with us, I love you all so much and want you to know how much you help out people like me around the world. I'm so thankful to all of you.
> 
> I rambled a lot but I'm just so happy, I almost burst into tears right when I brought a flag and a rainbow crop-top for myself. So like I'll end it here before I start crying. Thank you for actually reading this and my story, I love you all.


	7. Of Woojin And Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woojin and Jeongin tour around the place, magic was not part of the plan but Jeongin isn't complaining at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say sorry for not being able to post this chapter sooner. I'll explain it in the end notes. So, for now, I hope you enjoy the chapter!

The dinner was normal for most parts.

Awkward silence here and there, banters, shouts for salt, chicken soup; normal enough for Jeongin to get through it easily. After they were all done, Chan was polite enough to carry his bag—that lingered at the doorway where Jisung had unceremoniously dropped it—up to what is supposed to be Jeongin’s room now. He followed Chan upstairs, who led him to the end of the left corridor, handing him the keys to the bright blue door calmly saying that it was his room and that if he needed something he could easily go to Seungmin’s room besides his or come to his room downstairs. They both bid each other goodnights and Jeongin opened his room.

What greeted him then was not darkness as he was expecting, instead, it was an array of soft glowing lights twisted around the beams on the slanted roof, covering the room in a golden halo of sorts, it looked magical. Jeongin stepped in, the door behind him closing with a _click_. He danced around the room in soft calculated footsteps as though scared he would break something. The wood beneath his feet felt different than the one at his home, the sound softer and cleaner, the colour toned down to fit the beige walls, a little too smooth, warm. _Warm yet cold._ The bed made no creaking sounds and the mattress let Jeongin sink into it, the pillow encasing his head in the most comfortable of ways. Jeongin gushed when he saw the window seat, piled up with fluffy cushions and wavy patterned curtains tied back at both ends. He opened the window, staring at the bright stars that hung above the house. It was too dark to make out anything apart from that.

The sudden bitter cold wind hit Jeongin in his face. A small fluttering noise caught his attention as he scrambled to shut close the window. He turned around after a slight struggle trying to lock it, moving to the desk where a small paper barely stuck to the edge, on the verge of flying off into oblivion. He carefully peeled it off, reading it with a small smile on his face.

_I decided to decorate this room a bit so you can enjoy it here even more! but then again, I didn’t exactly know what you liked so, it’s more vaguely decorated than anything. I hope you like it anyways!_

_\--Felix_

_Yes,_ Jeongin thought, _I love it._ He then pinned the note onto the small board fitted on the desk, he had always wanted one of those boards, to pin down memories and notes and whatnot. Aesthetic values. He moved on to empty his bags, neatly folding his clothes and arranging them in the wardrobe, it didn’t take much of his time. He added his two books to his empty desk and wedged the papers he had with his colourful assortments of pens, tape, and scissors, bare necessities if you talk about supplies. When most of his stuff was out and kept in their place, he pushed the empty bag down into the depths of his closet and hanged his shoulder bag onto the chair. He pulled out the last two content from his bag, dropping the plushie onto his bed and then taping Yohan’s drawing on the wall right above his bed.

He steps back, laying down on the bed, sighing at the sudden stillness. He has nothing more to do now, no Jisung to fret about, no Hyunjin to dream about, no Felix to smile about, no Changbin to fear. He blandly thinks about his soft bed, given a period of time, little Jeongin would’ve died to lay his hands on a bed like this but now, it means nothing really. He comes from a small town, from a family that earns just enough to live their lives on borderline comfort, needless to say, Jeongin never has experienced setting foot into a place like this yet alone call it his room. His home was rougher, dirtier, tinged with a sense of cheap furniture and decorations. Would he prefer that more than this? _Any day._ Maybe because that was where Jeongin was raised at, maybe because it held a sense of security, maybe because it was more accustomed to his lifestyle, maybe because _it was his home._

Jeongin pulled up his light and pastel comforter with the sole memory of his bulky and equally tacky bright orange handed down blanket, honestly, the single thing Jeongin would’ve never thought he’d ever wish to have around but here he is. He sleeps.

The next morning he wakes up with a sense of unnatural discomfort, he guesses shifting places does mess up your mind a bit, so he swiftly ignores it, blindly locating a washroom to go about the same old morning routine, he finds one conveniently placed besides Seungmin’s room. He does what needs to be done, contemplates whether he should place his brush and toothpaste alongside the others thrown around the counter and decides against it, he probably isn’t that welcomed to have that kind of freedom.

The house remains eerily silent considering that eight other boys occupy the space. Jeongin shrugs it off, not everyone digs waking up early. He heads down to the kitchen with no purpose, he registers that his morning kitchen schedule with his mum had been so tightly adjusted into his life that over time it became more of a necessity than anything. A subconscious search for familiarities except it isn’t as subconscious as it should be, Jeongin does feel a little (heavily underestimated) disheartened knowing that whatever he’s looking for isn’t here, but he doesn’t stop either. 

He makes out a sturdy figure bent down near the counter from where he stands at the doorway, the boy probably sensing Jeongin’s presence turns around. He’s met with the round features of Woojin, his hair still stands tousled as compared to Jeongin’s neatly combed one, a smile overtaking his features as though he’s happy to have some company. _His crooked teeth are adorable,_ Jeongin thinks.

“Good morning!” He chirps, voice warm, “I don’t usually have people wake up this early around here. Except for Seungmin now and then.”

Jeongin mumbles his own shy good morning, awkwardly shuffling where he stands.

“Come take a seat.” He waves over to the chairs, “I feel too lonely preparing breakfast.” So that’s what Jeongin does. They sit in comfortable silence, the usual morning quietness falling in the house mixed in with Woojin moving around in the background is a different kind of peace for Jeongin. Once in a while, Woojin would ask him a question and he would answer it. Woojin carries a strong feeling of warmth with him, _everyone seems to do that here,_ not like Jisung, not chaotic at all, not like Hyunjin either, not that heart-fluttering warmth, nor like Felix, bubbly and somewhat childlike protective. Woojin is more of a _warm_ warm, which makes no sense but Jeongin seldom describes things correctly or cohesively without a pen and paper, words are hard to string together in thin air, harder to find in the first place.

“You haven’t seen around the place yet, right?” Woojin asks.

“Actually, Hyunjin hyung showed me around yesterday.”

“Hyunjin?” Woojin snorts out, “That boy probably just showed you the garden and came back.”

Jeongin couldn’t hold back asking, “There’s more?”

“A whole lot, sweetie.” That casual slip of nickname makes Jeongin duck his head a bit, he won’t admit the red dusting his cheeks are from it, not now at least, “You know what, after breakfast, I’ll give you a proper tour myself, the others are useless as usual.”

“I’d appreciate not getting insulted first thing in the morning, hyung.” Jeongin watches Seungmin groggily enter the kitchen, he tells him good morning and gets a sweet smile in return.

“How dare you club me in the same category as these pea brains?” Minho appears from nowhere in particular, just like yesterday, one moment he’s not here and the next moment he is. Just like that everyone starts coming in little by little, displaying various stages of waking up and processing information. Breakfast goes as fast as dinner did, with slightly more ease and Jeongin probably has casual morning laziness to thank for that. Everyone leaves to do their own thing as fast as they came.

“Hyung, don’t you have things to do?” Jeongin questions Woojin once it’s just the two of them cleaning up the table, realizing a beat later that he probably sounded like he was accusing Woojin of someone having nothing better to do with his time, “I-I didn’t mean it in--”

Woojin just laughs, stocking the plates on the sink, “I know what you meant and no, I don’t have things to do, Jeongin thus, I’ll have the honour of being your tour guide for today.”

Jeongin just nods his head, flustered enough.

They both leave the house soon after that. Jeongin quietly following wherever Woojin leads him to. They cross the garden fairly quick, he never noticed the fence covered with vines, he just thought it was the wall but here they were, Woojin sliding away the vines and opening the fence door to a whole another area behind their house.

The pathways were more bizarre from this point on, spread all across the place, “Even after all this time, once in a while I still get confused back here.” Woojin says and Jeongin thinks the easy solution to that would signs but then again if that’s the first thought that crosses his mind it would be befitting to say somebody out of the eight boys did bring that up. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking then yes, the signs were brought up but quickly shot down by Jisung,” they wait for a moment, Woojin contemplating which way to go, “He said that the important part was not the destination but the journey itself, getting lost is part of the fun I guess.” They continue, Jeongin can make out a huge structure very near to them.

“Now that,” Woojin points to the building, “Is named Apollo, vaguely pointing itself to be the infirmary or just the medical block in general. You need medicines or are in need of special medical attention you come here, the witch is alerted whenever that happens, so experts usually come in very soon.” Jeongin nods his head and they move on, paths curving out and narrowing down at very short distances, it’s almost as if somebody was kicking a football and then making a pathway following its movements.

They reach another huge building, Jeongin can make out its Gothic church features, towering tops, stained glass murals. “ _Learning is a religion.”_ Said Woojin, very much quoting someone, “The witch always says that. This is Minerva or library if you aren’t a fan of these names, she literary built a church to store books.”

“Who gave these names to the buildings? The witch?” Jeongin asked, wondering whether all the buildings around here would be playing around with greek mythology.

“No, Channie came up with the names, he is very invested into Greek and Roman mythologies. Jisung assigned them to the buildings, so occasionally you’d see a building that is weirdly paired up with a name with no connection to its functioning or anything. Changbin didn’t care enough to stop these two so, here it is.” Woojin answered, calmly moving on.

“Is Jisung hyung involved in everything that goes wrong? I’m seeing a pattern here.” Jeongin mumbles out. Woojin chuckled at that, a warm sound if Jeongin was being honest.

“Honestly, you might just be right. Though worry not, everyone else is often equally involved in stuff that goes wrong every now and then.”

“You do know that does not have the effect you wanted it to have, hyung.” Woojin laughs, seriously flustering Jeongin at this point.

“You’re so cute.” Woojin laughs out, _says you,_ Jeongin thinks.

They continue on, Woojin pointing the next few buildings, Jupiter, the practice chambers that spiral underground; Asteria, the towers built for stargazing, but it’s decorated with various hobbies related stuff on the ground floor. Woojin also told Jeongin about the various undiscovered and hidden doors and tunnels, “The witch wanted us to be thoroughly entertained,” he says, “So she decided to let builders work their magic and construct hidden surprises in the areas they were assigned with.”

There’s a little something that bugs Jeongin now, he remembers the talk he had with Hyunjin yesterday and he just is curious about how Woojin’s powers work. He hesitates and Woojin looks at him, slightly tilting his head in confusion, “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing just,” Jeongin blabbers out, “I was wondering how your powers work?”

“ _Oh._ Did Hyunjin tell you about the ‘keeper of lost thing’ stuff?” Jeongin nods eagerly, “The titles quite misleading, I don’t know why everyone still insists on calling me that.” Woojin shakes his head a bit, “But my powers are simple. I can take away snippets of your memories, dreams, sleep, your physical possessions too. The thing is whatever’s stored in that brain of yours I can whirlwind it away, store it in any form physical or not. I decide how those things make it back to you.”

“That’s so cool.” Jeongin speaks in awe, “Hyung, are there supposed to be drawbacks and limitations too?”

“Yeah, actually.” Woojin says, a sort of sad smile replacing his warm features, “The pulling out of physical things take a heavier toll on me. Also, I can only pull out things if the host maintains eye contact for the entirety of time I’m going through their head. Not only that, to store these things I lose pieces of my own, pieces I can’t recover _ever._ While these are usually mundane things,” Woojin takes a breath, “it just makes life a little harder.”

Jeongin thinks for a moment, imagines losing the memory of what he was supposed to do during the day, forgetting outings and events, it would be hard, _so hard._ He remembers forgetting to do homework and he felt so disappointed when it was his own memory to blame, he thinks about Woojin, forced to forget things against his will, it would be so frustrating and yet here stands Woojin, warm and calm and so welcoming. It’s a sort of admiration he feels when he looks at Woojin now, grounded and soft. Yes, Jeongin would never be able to understand the extent of the pain Woojin feels because of his powers but he knows a bit more about him, he holds a piece of Woojin, even if it’s just a centimeter closer, Jeongin feels this immense happiness to be trusted enough to be told all this.

“Hey,” Woojin all but whispers, it’s then Jeongin notices that he’s grasping onto Woojin’s jacket, he chuckles when he sees that Jeongin holds on stronger rather than letting his jacket go, “You know what wanna see some magic, Jeongin-ah?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, gazing into his eyes and Jeongin doesn’t move, holding his breath, he doesn’t even realize it’s happened until Woojin brings up his hand that he wasn’t clutching his jacket with, prying open his palm, he keeps a small glowing star-shaped object, swirling with hues of pinks and purples, sparkling, _it looked beautiful_. “There you go.”

“What,” Jeongin finally releases the breath he had been holding in, “What’s this, hyung?” He can’t help how breathy and light his voice sounds.

“Whenever you feel down, just crush it between your hands, you’ll like it.” Jeongin just stares at the star softly securing it in his hand.

“Let’s go, Jeongin-ah.” And they both start their journey back, Jeongin never losing his hold on Woojin’s jacket nor Woojin resisting it.

The star remains in his hand, it’s warmth slowly spreading throughout his body, Jeongin’s so utterly content at that moment, there’s nothing except the thought of Woojin filling his mind and he doesn’t hate it; Quite the contrary, he’s absolutely in love with this feeling.

\----X----

_What Woojin remembers from his childhood is his friends; his friends that used to fight so much so often, most likely because they weren’t meant to be together just the way some people just don’t click. Woojin does think that if it wasn’t for him maybe all his friends would’ve gone on separate ways sooner than they did._

_He remembers taking away all four of his friends’ memories of fights because every time they used to be on the verge of splitting apart and Woojin didn’t want that. He thinks that maybe he was too selfish, too selfish to let go of the fragile house of cards he had gotten himself into._  
  


_He remembers losing all of himself just to keep a measly group of five friends together. Woojin wasn’t a fan of changes, wasn’t a fan of straying away from normal and losing his friend group would mess up his colour-coordinated, organized life. Maybe that’s why he selflessly tried to salvage the friendship that was never there._

_Wearing himself over and becoming a husk of a person, Woojin learnt a valuable lesson of letting go, he learnt that you can’t expect people to find lost things if they aren’t even looking for it._

_He doesn’t remember much from his childhood, but he would never forget that._

_The Woojin of now tells everyone,_

_‘Look around you, look for a colour, say yellow. Some of you might spot it right away, to the ones who can’t spot it though this is for you. Look around a little bit slow this time, a book with a yellow colour thrown around carelessly or a cloth hidden somewhere in the room, that’s yellow. So, take your time, look around and now you suddenly know that you’ll find yellow somewhere._

_You have to look around a bit, look closely, spend a little more time searching. The things you’re looking for can always be found; Lost things can always be found, and lost souls will, in fact, return home, that is, if you look for them.’_

_\--Of Woojin and his heart_

\----X----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this huge gap in updates mean that I'm losing interest in the story? Absolutely not. Will these huge gaps in update continue? Most likely, yes. It's just school has started and I'm practically dying. I know getting older would mean that studies would get harder but this is such a huge jump from what I'm used to, it's like every work, fa, project is just thrown at you all at the same time and everyone's repeating how important this grade is and why you should pay more attention to your marks and it's just stressing me out. 
> 
> Honesty, writing this story is what makes me kind of relax and even now as I write it I have a mountain of tasks I have to complete but I just need a break from all that before I snap and have a mental breakdown. I'm sorry that I rant so often in these notes but it just helps me feel a little better.
> 
> Thank you for reading and supporting my story!


	8. Of Felix and Spilled Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix invites Jeongin over to his hideout and Jeongin finally lets go of the feelings he has been holding onto for one too many days.

The next few days Jeongin spent were ordinary. He’d wake up and go to Woojin in the kitchen, a strange sort of warmth between them now, Seungmin joined them once too, sitting in the quiet, comfortable silence for as long as the others didn’t come. He’d have an awkward encounter here and there, smiles shared and often avoidance of a certain _someone._ Jeongin was doing great on his own actually, he’d written a whole lot of stuff these days. Nobody really minded anything here, obviously you couldn’t invade somebody’s room but roaming around was not questioned at all and Jeongin kept on discovering all kinds of new passages, like the one right behind Asteria, merged in the ground so well that if he hadn’t accidentally dropped his stuff, he wouldn’t have ever found the hatchet, the underground bunker well decorated with shelves covering all the walls, occupied with what Jeongin guessed to be mapping equipment. So, all he usually did to pass time was either write or explore.

It was surprising to actually find Jeongin in his room, even while writing he chose to find a spot outside in the garden or the bunker but here he was today, too lazy to go out, he decided to just sit on his window seat and continued to write.

Somewhere after an hour or so, a knock is what startles him, the ink smearing on the page, making the word look crooked and wrong but still readable. He lets out a sigh of relief, keeping his stuff on the seat, he moves to open the door, coming face-to-face with a smiley Felix holding two plates in his hand, “Hey! You’re actually here for lunch.” He exclaimed, standing in the doorway. Jeongin had a habit of not showing up for lunch, mostly because either he was in the middle of his exploration or in the middle of writing something neither of which were as boring as the process of stuffing food into your face. He often heard an earful from Woojin but he just guilty smiled his way out of it. He opens the door wider for Felix, stepping aside to let him enter. “Let’s eat.” Felix says.

“Here?” Jeongin asks.

“Yup!” Felix answers back, “We can eat wherever we want to during lunchtime, it’s only necessary to be at the dining table during breakfasts and dinners.” _Wow,_ Jeongin thinks, _they even function as a family._ “Woojin and Chan would’ve hacked your brains out for skipping all the lunch meals you did otherwise.” He chuckles, “Come eat before the food gets cold! It’s chicken!” Jeongin takes the plate from Felix, opting to sit on the floor, leaning on the wall, it’s more of his habit than anything, Yohan used to always drop food whenever they had lunch in their rooms, he also always had food with Jeongin, in _Jeongin’s room_ , so they had established the rule of sitting on the floor while eating to avoid dirtying the bedsheets. Felix also slides besides him, taking Jeongin out of his expanding misery.

“You’re gonna eat here too?” Felix sheepishly smiles.

“Food doesn’t taste good unless you’re eating it with someone,” he said, “My mom always said that, albeit it was to convince me to not shut myself in my room and have all my meals by myself, it’s actually true, trust me!” he quickly adds, “Though, if you are more comfortable alone I can leave, no problem whatsoever.”

Jeongin lets out a small smile, “I’d like if you stay please.” And god, does Felix beam, his smile stretching so wide, he’s practically glowing, Jeongin can’t help but let out an amused smile of his own.

“Let’s dig in then!”

Jeongin quite wants to admit, as Felix laughs like there’s no tomorrow recalling stories about others and their stupidity, Jeongin’s stomach hurting from how long he’s been laughing, the food tastes good. It can be that the food was cooked perfectly but Jeongin refuses to believe that there could be any other reason for it to taste as good as it does other than the boy whose eyes crinkle up into crescents as he animatedly talks about _everything._ Felix reminds Jeongin of Yohan, he doesn’t know why it popped up now, but the more he stares at Felix the more his heart clenches. He doesn’t want to remember; he doesn’t want to let go of Felix either as he childishly clings to Jeongin while laughing.

His laughs slowly die down, “Hey,” Felix blurts out, “Do you have anything to do after this?” He looks at Jeongin, his face begging him to say ‘no’, _Yohan,_ his brain unhelpfully supplies.

“No.” He answers and god, the absolute childish happiness Felix has makes Jeongin want to clutch his heart because it’s squeezing so hard, he can’t help but smile, his mouth hurting from how wide his lips are stretched but he can’t stop, not as Felix hurriedly dusts himself off, dragging Jeongin up too, grabbing their plates in one hand and bolting out of the room. Felix almost slipped while running to the kitchen, Jeongin barely managing to catch him, Jisung passing by scoffing at the two. Felix practically threw the plates at the sink, the sound of it echoing in Jeongin’s ears making him cringe. He dragged him out of the door the very next second.

“Wait, Felix—” Jeongin struggled to not lose his balance and topple over him, most likely giving him some nasty bruises, “Felix—where are we going?”

“What’s the fun if I tell you where we are going?” He grins at Jeongin, slowing down a bit to allow him to catch up but not letting go of his hand. They run around all types of path, twisting and turning, Jeongin has a hunch that Felix doesn’t know the way around as good as Woojin did but that’s a given considering he came like a month ago, he wants to point the fact that they’ve passes the same crossway at least twice but Felix isn’t slowing down, still as enthusiastic as even so, Jeongin lets himself be dragged along, smile growing wider and wider.

They finally reach Apollo after Felix makes the left turn instead of the right one, Jeongin still smiling ear to ear, Felix lets out an almost concealed sound of victory, both of them walking inside. The building is well decorated from the inside too, the simplistic design and minimal open shelves suiting the calm atmosphere, the plants adding the hint of color required, Jeongin would never think medical blocks could ever be this beautiful, not after experiencing the horroresque infirmary of his school. While Jeongin moved around the room, observing various objects, Felix was shuffling around objects on a shelf.

There was an unexpected click sound, making Jeongin jump a bit, he turned around to see where it came from and there stood Felix moving the shelf easily out of the way to reveal another room, different from the one they were standing in, he calls Jeongin over. “Welcome to my hideout.” He whispers. In an overly sneaky manner, Felix looks around before motioning Jeongin to follow him, Jeongin holds back a giggle as they enter, the shelf pushing itself back when Felix slightly nudges it.

The hidden room was white too, except there were all kind of colors thrown around the room. Pictures, drawings, papers. Jeongin runs his hand on a beautiful sunflower painting. “You made these?” He asks, still in awe as his hands hover over all the various paintings spread out on the table, fitted into the corner of the room. In fact, paintings were spread out all across the room, on paper, on canvas, big and small, bright and dull.

Felix comes closer, standing besides him. He shifts his weight from one leg to another, “Yeah,” he says hesitantly, a quieter lilt to his voice, “I love painting stuff, I do it quite often here. Do you like it?” He looks almost shy, barely able to maintain eye contact with Jeongin. Jeongin can feel himself smiling again.

“Hyung, I love it!” He laughs out, “It’s so good! I can’t believe how skilled you are.” He sees Felix let out a radiant smile of his own, eyes crinkling as he watches his shoulders sag in relief.

“Thank you,” Felix replied, “I’m still getting the hang of it.” Jeongin nods his head, though with how fleshed out all the paintings are, he wonders what they’d look like when Felix _gets_ the hang of it.

“Do you do this for fun?” Jeongin asks, sitting on the empty chair all while Felix props himself up on the desk.

“Not exactly?” Felix says, quite unsure, “I don’t know. I like painting more than just for fun, it helps me forget things and let go or hold on to memories or certain parts of it. It’s this weird need to have a paintbrush in my hands sometimes, I can’t stop it—”

“—and it’s almost like you can’t live without doing it, right?” Jeongin completes it for him, knowing all well what Felix feels like and Felix just stares on, their eyes meeting, curiosity reflecting in his eyes and Jeongin thinks about how Felix seems like the kind of person who wears their hearts on their sleeves, he’d let out his feelings unknowingly, a tint of innocence to whatever he does, a sense of childhood and purity, he reminds him _so much_ of—he takes a breath, maintains the smile on his face, “I know. You can’t exactly describe the feeling, I love writing stories too, the same way as you love painting. I know what this feels like.” Felix hums in acknowledgment, his eyes growing softer, almost as if he had figured something out.

Felix flops back, hands stretching out, “I wanna read your stories now.” He says.

Jeongin just laughs, “They are nothing special, hyung. You must’ve read a thousand stories similar to the ones I write.”

“Yes but I haven’t read yours.” He says it so nonchalantly, still focused on Jeongin and Jeongin’s heart skips a beat, it’s a simple sentence and yet Jeongin feels like the world was offered to him, come to think of it, he always loved it whenever somebody wanted to get to know him. It felt like people wanted to understand him, to know what Jeongin was all about and getting that kind of attention is when Jeongin felt the happiest. _Yes but I haven’t read yours_ as though he’d read thousands of the same thing but he’d still find Jeongin’s different, his heart clenches again.

“Hyung, you know that hideouts are supposed to be secret right?” Jeongin changes the subject, commenting on the fact that Felix brought him to his hideout, so it’s likely that everyone knows about it.

“It's secret enough, you’re the first one I brought here.” And Jeongin backtracks.

He couldn’t hold back asking, “Me? Why me?”

Felix played with his hair, softly smiling to himself before glancing at Jeongin, “You’re,” he pauses, shaking his head, “I want to get closer to you.” Jeongin wanted to question him but before he could Felix continued, “We are similar. I’m also new and as much as I hate to admit, it gets hard sometimes. That’s why,” his voice growing more confident as he spoke, “I want to get closer to you. So that you— _we_ don’t have to go through it alone. I want to know you, Innie,” _that name,_ “I want to know you and I want you to want to know me.” Jeongin feels the familiar sting settle in his eyes, somebody understands; the feelings he has been pushing down all these past days, Felix wants him to not feel what he felt when he came here, Felix wants to share his feelings and wants Jeongin to do the same and it's something so small, something you expect friends to say but the way he says it breaks Jeongin's walls in ways he couldn't have thought of and all he could do at that moment is let out a chuckle and cover his face as tears pour out of his eyes.

“I, _I miss them,”_ he whimpers out pathetically, “I miss them so much, I—” he cuts himself off with a sob and Felix hurriedly hugs Jeongin and he still continues to cry, overwhelming grief knotting in his stomach, pulling at his heart, pins and needles at the back of neck choking him. It’s just that the past few days have been great; new, interesting but an emptiness follows him everywhere, a sort of grey where he wants to breakdown but can’t, where he’s at the edge, eager to spill but can’t, it’s the sort of emptiness that slowly eats him up whenever he feels lonely, the sort that makes him want to crawl out of his skin. He feels his shoulders grow wet too, he realizes Felix is weeping too.

“Me too,” Felix whispers, _“I miss them too.”_ Jeongin can’t help but wrap his hands around Felix too, pulling him close, both of them curling into each other as they breakdown. Felix doesn’t offer Jonghyun’s ‘everything will be okay’ comfort nor does he offer the ‘if you’re crying, I’ll too’ like Yohan, no; Felix is more about _I know what it feels like, I know it all too well so let it out, let’s do it together. I understand. I know._ And god did Jeongin need it the most out of all. They just cry, sobs mingling into each other, fists tangled in each other’s shirts, for minutes, hours.

They move away only when their cries drown out to sobs, Felix still wedged on Jeongin’s lap, quietly wiping his tears with his sleeves, “Hey,” he mumbles, voice absolutely wrecked, deeper and more raw, he lets out a clipped laugh, tears still steaming as he smiles, “Wanna tell me about them?” he asks.

Jeongin lets out a chuckle too, burying his head in Felix’s shoulders all while Felix runs his hand through his hair, “Only if you tell me about yours.” His voice sounds equally wrecked if not more, shaky and breaking weirdly at places, it feels good though, it isn’t the usual numbness that follows this time around, it’s a mushy feeling, as though Jeongin’s gonna melt in Felix’s hold, he feels warm and for the first time the ever-growing hole in his heart is being filled up, little by little, piece by piece.

“Deal.” Felix laughs.

“God, hyung, you’d love Yohan—”

They talk.

\----X----

_The thing about playing hide and seek is that you never know where the seeker is, are they there, searching for your breath, for a sound, a sign to catch you? Or did they grow bored of it, leaving to do something inherently better like laying lethargically on the couch, stuffing candies into their mouth, you can’t leave though, not yet._

_You can’t make a sound, holding your breath, knees tucked in, the silence and constant alertness becoming a part of you, you can’t not win now (for if nobody finds you, you won), sitting there you don’t want to move._

_But when somebody catches you, after a long while, when somebody sneaks up to you all while you’re too lost concentrating on not letting your breathing be loud, it’s something out of the world. That feeling when you finally unfold your legs, no longer scared, the screaming voice, booming all around the room, ringing in your ears, ‘found you.’ Finally, finally overtaking the loud silence, the feeling of letting go, the sink finally overflowing. You stand up on your shaky legs, the darkness gone now that you’re found, the adjusting of your eyes to the brightness, the feeling of ants crawling over your feet slowly fading away as you can feel the cold ground again. It’s breath-taking, painfully so but you slowly fall in love with it._

_You want people to look for you, to find you. You can stand up and get out yourself but losing to someone sounds so much better than losing alone. Being found sounds so much better than giving up and so, you’ll wait in overbearing silence, in overwhelming darkness, uncomfortably folded into yourself, waiting for someone; waiting for it to be over, waiting to be found, waiting to be known and god, is it the most fulfilling feeling in the world when someone does._

_\--From Jeongin’s one to many hide and seek games with people_

\----X----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me tell you all, I'm kinda very disappointed in this chapter, it just seems like a poor excuse of a shitty filler but then again considering how few braincells I have left after this tiring school week this was the best I could come up with, I'll obviously do better in the chapters after this cause they aren't nearly as spontaneous as this one and are actually planned out. 
> 
> Thank you so much for continuing to read and support the story! Love you all so much!


	9. Of Towns, Cookies and Minho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeongin finally meets the witch, leaving himself with more questions than answers but Minho's there at the end of the day, to save him from his expanding misery.

They sit there, sniffling and laughing about their memories and families, parts and pieces being exchanged. They move around, recite stories, ask questions almost as if they can’t get enough of each other, Jeongin wants to know and Jeongin wants to tell, he’s no longer holding back. For the first time here Jeongin wants himself to be known rather than just knowing people, Jeongin feels loved, Jeongin feels warm, Jeongin _feels._ Felix runs him down about the southern town, of sea breezes and hues of blues, of soft showers and glowing lights, of a town that lived with the rain. Jeongin tells him about the northern town, of fields spread out on flat land for as far as you can see, of bright and dulled out yellows, of basking in the warmth and sun-kissed skins, of a town that built itself on rough wood and warm tones.

Jeongin got to know about how Felix was the only child and how his parents spoilt him to no return, even if they were seldom there, he told him about his monotonous life, of how he sort of felt glad when he first got the letter but soon came to realize how stupid it was for him to forget how much he treasured his simple lifestyle. He talks to Felix about Jonghyun and Yohan, of working on fields and his loving parents. He told him about how hard it was leaving his family, of how he didn’t want to let go of the concept of life he had settled into. Jeongin didn’t mention the sickness, it’s a part of his life he wants to forget himself and opening that chapter up would just end up in a plethora of bad memories and Jeongin just wants to continue this light-headed atmosphere with Felix. It’s the kind where everything’s soft, equal parts nostalgia and grief, once in a while they’d blurt out some of their regrets _, it’s comfortable,_ Jeongin thinks, _to share_ _bits and pieces of your life to someone who understands the feelings behind them._

“I’m hungry now.” Felix mumbles absent-mindedly, playing with his nails.

Jeongin asks from where he sits propped against the wall, “Don’t have a food pantry here?”

“Oh,” Felix exclaims, eyes wide, “Nice idea. I could just keep the food here.”

Jeongin laughs, “You never thought of that?” Felix just groans and its answer enough. “Well,” Jeongin pushes himself up, “Let’s go grab some food back from the kitchen.” He helps Felix up from the chair he totally melted into.

They move out of the space, Felix gently nudging the wall as it opens back to the medical block. He gets back to arranging the objects all while Jeongin stares off into space, “Listen,” he says, “I’ll wait for you outside, I feel a bit out of it here.” He can’t erase the stench of medicines and sickness from any medical block and the same goes for this beautiful one. He gets an affirmation from Felix and leaves.

Coming outside is like a breath of fresh air, the sky’s a pretty orange, he huffs. He jumps a bit when he feels something at his feet, letting out a small screech. He peers down, legs split apart and a cat stares at him, pitch black, innocently tilting its head and meowing as if questioning Jeongin’s startled state. He stares at it for a minute before it starts circling his legs again. Jeongin giggles a bit, sitting down to pet the adorable creature. It lets him rub its ear, purring and Jeongin can’t help but coo at it. He runs his hand across its fur, his fingers grabbing hold of its collar, it’s a royal blue, _‘Deigo’_ it spells out, “Such a pretty name.” Jeongin mumbles, his fingers still running through its fur.

“He doesn’t let people do that, I guess he likes you.” The sudden voice above him leaves him startled, as he glances on a shiny black heels, slowly looking up, coming face-to-face with a woman, her blond hair falling in beautiful locks behind her, a smile on her face as she stares at Jeongin, her ruffled black dress going down like a waterfall behind her. He sits stunned for an eternity, the woman is so entrancing, so elegantly carrying herself, soft and equally mesmerizing.

Felix hops out behind him. “Hey, sorry it took a while I got—” He pauses for a second, _“Oh.”_ He mumbles, Jeongin stares back at him with questioning eyes.

“Felix!” The woman proclaims, “It’s been so long!” She laughs out.

Felix pouts, “You never visit me anymore! Of course, it’s been a long while now!”

“Come here, now.” She says and Felix follows her beckoning hand. She fondly smiles as she ruffles Felix’s hair, Jeongin quietly watches the exchange, watches Felix no longer being able to hold his smile in. He slowly realizes that the woman standing in front of him is indeed the witch. There’s a shudder running down his spine, he feels as though he’s not supposed to be here but at the same time, he wants to burst out at her, waiting to just scream at the woman who took his family away. He just stands there though, waiting for his next instruction, his life lays in the hands of the woman in front of him anyways.

“Felix,” She says in between Felix whining to her, “I think you need to introduce me to your new friend there.” She not so secretly points at Jeongin.

“As though you don’t know everything about him already!” Felix groans.

“Now, now Felix,” she chastises like a mother clearly disappointed in her child, “Won’t you help me look well-mannered?” and Felix snorts. Which in retrospect Jeongin thinks the witch should consider an insult but she stands there, still fondly gazing at Felix, shaking her head as she giggles a bit, the poorly suppressed movements of her shoulder giving it away.

Felix smiles looking at him and Jeongin feels himself becoming less tense unconsciously as though as long as Felix is there Jeongin will continue to feel at ease. “This is Jeongin! He’s the youngest out of all of us! Treat him well, Sana or else you’ll make me sad.” He ends it with a pout, hands wrapped protectively around Jeongin.

“You have my word.” And it’s not the same playful tone. The witch says it with a confidence of sorts, with her voice containing a lilt of warmth as she stares onto Jeongin, a small smile on her face. “Can I have a few moments with you, if you don’t mind?” Silence fills the space, Jeongin’s still staring at the witch, apprehensively, he was confused with how nice she was being and what he had been thinking about her prior to this meeting, is it an act? Is it not? He has no idea and he’s lost.

Felix nudges him and he realizes the question was for him, he’s so stupid, _oh my god--,_ “Y-yes, sure.” He mumbles before he takes even more time panicking about how much time he’s already taken.

“I’ll be leaving then.” Felix exclaims, “Meet you later, Jeongin.” He whispers in his ears, waves at the witch, squeezes Jeongin’s hand once as though reassuring him _everything’s gonna be fine_ and he’s going to have to trust Felix on that one.

“Wanna walk around?” The witch asks after Felix leaves. Jeongin just nods, following the witch as she moves onto the pathway. He awkwardly follows her, falling a step or two behind, he doesn’t really know whether he’s allowed to walk alongside her or not. The talks he had on the fields circle around In the back of his mind, _the witch probably eats the people she takes,_ which after seeing her interact with Felix is absolutely false but he’d rather be safe than sorry.

“Jeongin,” she starts, turning her head a bit to look at him, “you know there’s enough space for two people to walk together right?” She asks, her voice playful as she questioned him about the obvious. Jeongin gets the hint, nodding furiously as he keeps his head down, his cheeks warm as he aligns himself to the witch. She laughs, it’s a pleasant sound (though he’d say he likes Woojin’s better), “So,” She continues, “I’m Sana better known as the witch. I had been wanting to meet you for a while now. Should I start with what I want to tell you or would you like to go first?”

“You should go first, please.” Jeongin mutters, he finds it annoying how his voice just went weaker and smaller.

She lets out an affirmative hum, “I hope you got settled in here, I thought I’d let you get comfortable before visiting.” Jeongin just nods, he did get settled, everyone’s nice to him, it’s just been a few days so it’s obvious he won’t be close to just everybody but he guess Woojin, Jisung, Hyunjin, and Felix count and it’s not like the others haven’t been nice to him either, Chan makes sure he’s okay, always asking how his day went, Minho randomly waltz in wherever Jeongin is, exclaims a joke which makes Jeongin laugh before disappearing, Seungmin mutters certain facts about the others in his ears from time to time and well, Changbin makes sure to thoroughly avoid Jeongin’s existence, all is good (except maybe Jeongin has a confrontation due with a certain someone but that’s for another day.)

“I’m glad,” she says, hands clapped together, “Moving on from tomorrow I’d like you to follow a certain routine, basic lessons with the others, it’s not all that strict and you can twist it from time to time. Just think of it as an outline of what you’re sort of expected to do here. Diego will bring it to you a little later.” And as if replying to the witch, Deigo meows confirming that he would be bringing it, “First and foremost, we have to know what your powers are, so as to we can work on controlling it. Magic does tend to be closely woven with things that you love to do, or would want to do, though not always, it’s better to start looking from there though?” She ends it as a question, her eyebrows furrowing. To Jeongin she reminds him of…a human. A normal human that gets confused sometimes. He doesn’t really know what he was expecting, he was overwhelmed but not now, even after this short of a period he realizes the witch isn’t indeed speaking in moon runes or such, it’s just normal talk as though his teacher was guiding him on his work, _normal._

“And,” she continues, “I think I’m getting too tangled in what I should tell you next, it would be a great help if you could ask me questions instead now, Jeongin before I lose my sanity over deciding what to speak.” _Yeah. Totally human._ Questions, Jeongin has one too many, he decides to start off on a civil note, the witch seems like a kind person, bursting at her at once doesn’t sound very compelling to him, while he did dream about this meeting and planned out his snarky comments, this isn’t exactly how the situation played out in his head.

“What exactly would be the use of discovering these powers?” He meekly said. He has been thinking about that a lot ever since the day with Woojin he slowly realized that these people do have magic running through them and being invited to live with them means that Jeongin has something to offer to but how would it change anything? Even if Jisung, Woojin, Chan and everyone else know how to use magic and control it what’s the use? What is all of this for?

The witch hums, “The use,” she says, “There are things out here, Jeongin, ones that want nothing else than to see the world burn. Magic is everywhere and it’s natural that people would discover it. As a matter of human nature, it’s obvious they would be curious to explore it, to expand it. Once in a while somebody gets too tangled in their own curiosity, looking for answers to come to them as fast as possible and most of the time the means to do so is less than morally correct, cheating to say as such. Magic depends on the user at its root, it has no will of its own, it only follows what we want it to do.” She lets out a sigh in between, “The number of people turning away from humanity and good magic is scaring. What use does all of your magic have? I do hope it protects us from what’s about to come, Jeongin.” He has his lips sealed, _evil magic,_ the only evil he’d ever seen related to magic was in the books he read or when he once got thrown around in the fields by an elite because he didn’t want to share his lunch. It’s hard to believe something like this because he isn’t afraid to admit that he’s been ignorant to everything other than his own little world for all his life now. To be in the center of all this feels like too much.

“To be very honest with you, Jeongin,” She starts explaining again, “You weren’t supposed to be here this early, maybe if things played out differently you would’ve never come here at all.”

“What do you mean by _not so early?_ ” Jeongin couldn’t help but ask her.

“You weren’t supposed to be here for a long time now, it should’ve been later, you’re too young. If I could I would’ve never called you but there was no way out of this. Things are getting out of hand faster than I predicted them to, the boys here are not changing as fast as I thought they would, it just seemed like there was no avoiding it, you were the last card I could’ve played here, Jeongin. It felt like you would slip out to them too, I couldn’t have that.” A solemn expression reflects on her face, Jeongin feels like there was something between those words, something that affects her this much. _Human_. The witch seems as human as everyone else, emotions running through her, it was stupid of him to expect anything else from her anyways, of course, she’d be human with a little more than enough magic but he couldn’t just keep himself from asking, no matter how human she is, Jeongin just wants to _know._

“Would you have,” He takes a breath, “Would you have cursed my family if I would’ve refused to come?”

The witch stops, her eyebrows knitted together as she stares at Jeongin, her mouth opening and closing before she takes a deep breath and settles on her words, _“Yes.”_ She speaks out as though it took everything to utter a simple word and Jeongin feels something shift inside him. The same confusion double the force, It seems that all he was thinking walking besides her was slowly dissolving, he takes a step behind on instinct,

“Why?” He could hear the cold tone his voice had settled on, somehow all he wished at that moment was for someone to be there with him, it didn’t matter who, even Changbin would suffice, Jeongin didn’t want to be all alone with her anymore.

“Jeongin,” She spoke, her voice going soft, an edge of desperation that Jeongin catches onto, “There is no other way Jeongin, they would’ve caught onto you otherwise and the state they would’ve left you in would’ve been worse try to—”

“Who are the ‘ _they’_ you keep talking about?” Jeongin interrupted her.

“Now’s not the time for you to know, Jeongin, please just try to understand me I wanted nothing more than for you and your family to be safe.”

“By cursing us? I don’t know what worse _they_ could’ve done to us.” He sneered, he doesn’t remember ever being this mad at someone ever, “Sorry, now’s not the time I’d understand you, not for a long while.”

The witch sighed as if giving up, she hung her head down for a moment or two before trying to stare at Jeongin again, “I do apologize for my inconvenient answers. I hope you know, I would never lie to you about anything, somethings require timings Jeongin and now is not the right one to let you know what you ask of. I know I made it harder for you to trust me but I hope you trust the boys instead if not me.” Jeongin meets her eyes then, a strange relief mixes into the stare as she looks at him, almost as if she wasn’t expecting him to, “I hope in the future you could come to trust me; I hope in the future you would be comfortable enough to call me Sana. Thank you for hearing me out.” She bowed at him and Jeongin had to hold back instinctively bowing back at her, though he hesitantly did so, not as sincere or sharp as her, “Let’s meet again, Jeongin.” She says and Jeongin lets out a small nod, turning on his heels to go back to the house.

He was some steps in when the need to turn around to stare at the witch was no longer something he could ignore so he did. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in as he saw the witch disappeared, no longer standing there with her face morphed into something akin to desperation and defeat, he continued on the path back to the house. Needless to say, he got lost twice or thrice before he finally came across the medical block from where he easily made his way out.

Entering the house felt like he could finally breathe, a feeling of warmth settling in his bones. Jeongin was suddenly so tired, he couldn’t help but go straight for his room, falling on his bed in the darkness and just closing his eyes, he didn’t want to think about anything, he hopes Woojin would understand that he has no appetite, Jeongin just wants to sleep.

It’s a while later when it feels like an eternity passed. Jeongin feels like his limbs are so utterly heavy, as though he were to sink into the mattress. He turns around trying to figure out the soft blue light colouring his room, illuminating it, he stares through the window, the midnight sky paints a pretty picture with stars littered everywhere, the moon barely visible, dangling in the dark blues, the sharp white light remaining still.

He gives it his all trying to pick himself up from the bed, he wiggles his toes a bit when he sits up, swinging his legs and hands as he stands, he still feels heavy somehow, ignoring it he proceeds to look for solutions for his current very prominent problem, his stomach fucking aches, he’s so utterly hungry he can devour anything thrown his way. He thanks god, that his half-asleep brain has enough knowledge to ensure that Jeongin can make his way to the kitchen safely and so he does. Entering the kitchen, he rummages through shelves, looking for something that would satisfy him enough.

“What are you looking for?” A voice from behind startles him, he loses his balance, not like he had much in the first place as he stood on his toes, hands grab his waist, stopping him from falling right over and slamming his head onto the table, he stumbles before he softly slams into someone’s chest, the hands still holding protectively onto his waist, he can almost feel the warmth seeping through his shirt, he hears a soft laugh right beside his ears, “Fell for me already? Just by hearing my voice?”

Jeongin felt heavy already, the support _helps_. He can’t bring himself to move away, he’d later blame his half-asleep brain but honestly, he can’t help but feel mushy and warm there with arms around, he looks back to know who’s there and what comes in his view is a round face, illuminated by the same blue midnight light filtering through the kitchen window. He feels the need to trace the angular nose and he notices the long fluttering eyelashes as the guy blinks at him, a curious smile on his face. _Minho hyung,_ his mind finally helpfully supplies. Minho coughs a bit and it’s then Jeongin finally registers the position they are in, he scrambles to get off of Minho, leaning all his weight on the counter instead, he turns around to face Minho, though he soon covers his face with his hand, he can practically feel his ears heating up.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Minho whines a bit. Jeongin just lets out a confused sound, he can’t remember anything properly except the warmth of Minho’s arms on his waist, the ghost feeling still there and he feels compelled to just find his way back into his arms again, “What were you looking for?”

“Ah, I-I was-I mean,” He fumbles a bit, going back and forth between his words before he figures out that he’s only be embarrassing himself further by this, “I was just looking for snacks,” His voice turned to an almost whisper, “I was hungry.” Minho laughs and Jeongin doesn’t know why but he feels his cheeks heat up even more. It’s just he had never heard Minho laugh before, it was usually Jeongin that was laughing at his jokes and all Minho would do was crank up a smile, even in those moments Jeongin had often thought about how pretty Minho was, just he didn’t expect his laugh to sound _this pretty_ as well.

Minho moves around him, to get to the shelf below, completely sitting down and sticking in his hand as far as it could go, he hears Minho mumble something around the line of ‘it should be here’ before he lets out an ‘aha!’ as he pulls out a jar. He closes the shelf and completely leans onto it, settling himself down on the floor. “Come on down.” He says as he pulls Jeongin’s hand, forcing him down besides him. “Here you go.” He keeps the jar in front of them, Jeongin notices how it’s filled with cookies. “It’s Felix’s secret stash of snacks. He brought it from his favourite bakery in the city. He thinks he’s real sneaky about hiding it but there’s nothing that could be hidden for long from me.” Jeongin not ashamed of himself as he pulls out three cookies from the jar, briefly thinking about apologizing to Felix in the morning before realizing that there’s no need to do so if Felix doesn’t even know he’s the one who ate it. It reminds him of sneaking Yohan’s chocolate into Jonghyun’s room during exams to help his hyung destress and fulfill both their cravings at the same time.

Minho and Jeongin sit there, in the moonlit kitchen, legs folded and shoulders touching. There’s nothing quite like sneakily eating someone else’s snacks in the middle of the night Jeongin guesses. He chomps on the cookie, absent-mindedly scoffing, “I could’ve made better ones.” And Minho is overjoyed hearing that, “What?” Jeongin asks him.

“I knew it!” He whispers shouts, “I’ve been observing a pattern here. You know, everyone here has a single insignificant but not so insignificant quirk in this house.” Jeongin’s completely hooked on it, waiting for Minho to continue, “Chan hyung can always tune the radio to the channel he wants at his first try, Woojin hyung always finds the best places to eat according to the food we want, Changbin can always open the book at the page he left without the use of a bookmark, Hyunjin always knows when it’s 11:11 to tell whoever’s around him to wish for something, Jisung knows exactly how to make the best paper planes , Suengmin can always turn back to the TV channel the second the commercial break ends, Felix knows exactly when somebody needs water and now I know you can most likely make god-tier cookies. My collection is complete!” Minho sounds so giddy. It’s almost as if they have no filter, speaking everything that pops up into their mind no matter how dumb.

“What’s your quirk hyung?” Jeongin asks.

“Well I,” Minho speaks, a proud grin on his face, “I know exactly where I need to be at the perfect time.” And Jeongin very easily can agree, with Minho waltzing in at random moments when Jeongin’s too lost for his own good, making him laugh which in turn, lessens his tension. He’s thankful really.

They continue to talk about things, munching on the cookies in between. “Hyung, why were you still awake?” Jeongin questions.

“It’s just one of those nights, couldn’t sleep.” Minho says before he rubs his wrist a bit, “That was totally a lie.” He says again, shaking his head, “I was thinking about you, it never feels right when somebody’s missing breakfast or dinner, I can’t stop thinking about them.” Jeongin feels a warmth in his chest knowing that his absence was noticed, Minho saying that he was thinking about him makes him feel happy but at the same time, he feels guilty for being the reason Minho couldn’t sleep.

“Sorry.” He says.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” Minho chuckles, “You had the talk, didn’t you? With the witch?” Minho asks.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” Jeongin can’t find it in himself to lie anymore.

“Wanna talk about it?” Minho mumbles, scooting a bit closer towards him, their legs pressed together. Jeongin tells him everything, all the questions he asked, all the answers he got, his confusion. In return, Minho talks about his own experience first time talking to the witch, or how he and Jisung still stand a bit apprehensive of her, not a lot; just a _little_ bit.

“I promise you though,” Minho tells Jeongin at the very end, both of them still chomping on their cookies, “You can always trust us, Jeongin. No matter what.” Jeongin lets out an affirmative hum, his head slowly dropping onto Minho’s shoulders. They move on with their talks. Minho calmly resting his head on top of Jeongin’s.

“You know,” he whispers, sounding tired, Jeongin can see a lazy smile on his face, “You probably won’t believe it.”

“Tell me, hyung.” Jeongin replies, sounding equally, if not more, tired but they still smile, wanting to hear more, wanting to talk more.

“Once,” Minho starts slowly, “I saw Changbin devouring all of Felix’s cookies in less than ten minutes one night.” Minho starts laughing, his shoulders moving and his voice _so close, so soothing_ , Jeongin can’t help but laugh along with him both at the mental image of Changbin stuffing cookies into his mouth and because Minho’s laugh is so infectious.

He doesn’t know how long they talk for after that, skirting around one serious topic before shifting to something that makes them laugh. They both lean closer and closer to each other. Jeongin briefly thinks, how ethereal the night-time kitchen is, how he won’t forget how ethereal Minho looked in the night light, how he’ll store all the words whispered in the night close to his heart. Jeongin remembers his eyelids feeling so heavy that they started drooping. He remembers the ‘Sleep well, Jeongin-ah.’ whispered into his ears before he let his eyes shut. He remembers the arms around him too.

Jeongin remembers the familiar warmth.

\----X----

_Felix remembers the arrival of the letter, exactly at six o’clock on a blistering March evening, quite strange for the Southern town which thrived on the rains. The day had somehow cooked the concrete, the sun still up and high and aching. He knew the oncoming of something different from the first moment his eyes had been burned while looking at the sky._

_It arrived at the hands of a bent and broken man, waiting to be finished off by the air but not that eventful evening, the man himself could’ve probably smelled it, the immortality that stood with him till the moment he held the letter in his frail hands. The universe making him unkillable the one moment he was better off dead. Felix was up to the task of sneakily feeding his neighbour’s mule, Hector. It stood there nonchalantly, inside Felix’s garden. A blank look on his long, lopsided face as he stared on the man._

_Felix’s parents weren’t home yet, the heat inside his garden somehow more stifling than the rest of the street but Felix stood there, following the beckoning hand of the man, he was handed down the letter and he stared on the retreating figure of the man walking down the street, slowly wobbling out of existence as though he never existed. Needless to say, Felix was the first one to read the letter and Felix thinks it would’ve been the heat messing with his brain but the first thing he thought was how excited he was to leave the town, to leave his set-in-stone life. Hector stood beside him too. How could he forget the absolute nonsense of a day that was? The sun up in the Southern town, the garden having a geography and climate of its own, the thatch-faced, wide-eyed, bastard of a mule standing there, chewing as Felix laughed._

_The Southern town taught Felix one too many things he’d come to realize later on. Of the town that taught him to enjoy in the scenes of an oncoming thunderstorm, of the town which told him to be upfront, better wear your heart on sleeves for everyone to see, to wait once in a while for someone to come along and gently hold it as you do, of a town that taught him that a home wasn’t always inside the four walls and a roof, sometimes it was inside a beating heart, if lucky enough, maybe multiple of them. Felix hopes someday he’d help someone find their home too, if lucky enough, he’d become one himself._

_-A little something Felix thinks about his hometown_

\----X----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess my bias in Twice lol. 
> 
> The past three weeks have been an absolute rollercoaster, revision, exams and then finally some long-awaited rest but I'm back! School's still kicking my ass but I'll live. Also, I had so much fun writing that Minho part considering me and my friend did that a whole lot during exam weeks! I hope you enjoy the chapter even though it was kind of rushed (Quite a feat considering it's been a month since the last update but like I got too carried away resting (ಥ﹏ಥ) )


	10. Not an update

**_“Nine or none.”_ **

****

To say I’d read that news after waking up first thing in the morning was heartbreaking would be an understatement. I had been finishing off the recent chapter but this happened and I’ve just been crying about it. It’s just the whole day, little things just bring me back to Woojin and what happened. There’s one thing I want to say clearly, as we always go on proclaiming, nine or none, I will stand by these nine boys no matter what. I don’t care where they go, whether they stick together or not, these _nine_ boys will always have my love and support for whatever they decide to do.

To Woojin, I can’t thank you enough for all the times you’ve made me smile and laugh and squeal, can’t remember the number of times I’ve heard your voice and literally melted smiling to myself, you were my first bias afterall, warm, kind, you stood strong for the other eight members, comforting them whenever they needed it. I want to become like you, to be someone people could trust and look up to. No matter what you do Woojin, I hope you’re happy, you deserve nothing less of sorts. You did well, thank you so much for working so hard for us. We’ll never forget you, never let anyone forget about you either. For whatever you choose to do next, I’ll always stand with you, along with other Stays. Your members wish you well and so do I. I hope you know how much we love and support you. I hope you know that we will always stand with you and I hope you always keep on smiling; you look so beautiful like that. I love you.

To Chan, you had nothing to apologize for and yet you did, even when your grief was far worse than ours, I can’t even begin to imagine the pain you are going through. It wasn’t your duty as such to keep the nine of you together, we are happy as long as you all are. We’ll go through this, you and Woojin and stray kids, as long as you are happy, we are too. We’ll stand by you forever and ever. Thank you, Chan for being such an amazing person. I love you.

_However,_ there’s one other thing I want to make clear here, I hope Woojin chose this for himself and it might have taken a great deal of courage to come to a decision this big. Stays are respectful, we try not to stir up problems and we are quick to fix them, whenever one of us steps over a line hundreds are ready to reprimand, we really are a tame and calm fandom but if there’s even the slightest of truth in the speculations going around, I will let jyp know that stays won’t be so respectful anymore. Hurt any of our boys and we will make sure to burn you down and it isn’t as much of a threat as it is a promise.

Do I find it fishy that all of this happened so suddenly? Yes. I’ve been trying to understand and I do hope that this is indeed Woojin’s own personal choice but part of me just looks back on Hwall’s departure and how it was easier to make peace with it because there was a letter from the member himself, assuring us of how he decided it on his own terms Woojin didn’t write a farewell letter yet, to think it happened in what the span of a week? Terminating an exclusive contract within a week? I am in no way trying to force Woojin to come out with a full-blown explanation of what, why, how but I do want to listen to something from _him._ No goodbye statement from jyp, no nothing, Jimin got a better goodbye (and she deserved every part of it but so did Woojin?), Mina got a better explanation for going on a break (which again, I understand mental health is a very serious topic and with the number of people who disregard it, it’s important to make sure they understand the severity of the case but leaving a growing group is also big enough to you know be told in more than 5 fucking sentences?). Even if in the end it is actually his decision, I would still be mad that jyp didn’t give him the farewell he well deserved.

If any of this was against his will, if this is a repeat of what jyp did to Junhyeok then I really will commit murder. It’s about time that companies start treating their idols like humans, dating, smoking, drinking, whatever other unreasonable bans there are which they show to be very strict on, these are adults we are talking about, grown enough to make decisions for themselves, stop selling them as innocent angels, stop giving into the fantasies of crazy ‘fans’, people should come down from whatever delusion gods they’ve made these idols to be, they are not, let them fucking breathe.

_Stray Kids, Thank you, I will stand with you forever, all nine of you._


	11. Of Memories, Banters and a Sense of Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeongin gets his schedule and spends his time with Chan and Seungmin, learning a thing or two about punches and breaking rules.

Jeongin wakes up next morning back in his bed, warm underneath his soft pastel blanket. He stands up slowly, he’s more refreshed than ever and maybe a little nauseous due to those cookies but nothing so severe to stop him from devouring Woojin’s breakfast today. He disjointedly moves around his room before he feels something soft and very much alive graze past his feet. Like every normal human, Jeongin’s startled state is one where he jumps back in surprise but somehow holds himself back from letting out a scream by shutting close his mouth.

He peers down at the floor and there stands Diego, licking his paws and staring at Jeongin, smug almost, for causing Jeongin to lose his shit so early in the morning. Jeongin lets out a sigh of relief, crouching down and beckoning Diego to come closer which he does. Jeongin lets out a laugh as he rubs Diego’s soft fur, scratching behind his ears, listens to him let out a purr. His hands catch at Diego’s collar which has a letter attached to it and it clicks.

“Ah,” He says, “So, keeping your promise I see?” He takes out the letter from where it hangs. He huffs, reading the said schedule. _Okay, yeah._ His _adventure_ starts now, he guesses. He picks Diego up, opens up his window and Diego meows as what Jeongin thinks is a farewell. “Bye, buddy. See you soon.” He waves to the cat as it jumps out the window.

He leaves it at that, the schedule at his desk, he’ll bother with it after breakfast. He does all his morning routines and makes his way to the kitchen and there stands the very familiar sight of Woojin humming as he gracefully moves around the kitchen, he can’t believe how easily he’s taken a liking to this kind of normalcy (though he guesses with so many things that don’t seem normal here, the moments he gets with the other eight are everything he holds onto now.)

Woojin turns back to look, he smiles at him before he continues stirring the pot, “Good morning, Jeongin!” He chirps, voice still sweet like honey.

“Good morning to you too, hyung.” Jeongin smiles.

“I thought you’d wake up late today, maybe not even attend breakfast.”

“Hyung,” Jeongin laughs, “I’m eighteen. I swear I do, _not so_ mature things, but throwing a temper tantrum is the least likely option in my list to reacting to problems.”

Woojin lets out a surprised laugh too, “talkative today?”

“I guess it’s one of those days.” Jeongin shrugs.

“Is it now?”

They fall into a comfortable conversation, skimming from one unimportant topic to another, it reminds Jeongin of home, of staying back and watching his mother cook him dinner during evenings, talking about the little town and it’s people’s lives. With Woojin, it seemed like a bitter reminder at the very beginning, Woojin with his honey-laced voice and calm aura, Woojin with his pretty face and even prettier laugh, whenever he talks Jeongin swears to god he isn’t exaggerating when he says it sounds like a song, now it’s a warmth that seeps into his skin (the same way the ghost feeling of Minho’s hands leave his skin burning), Woojin’s warm and today of all days, Jeongin wants to bask in it.

“By the way,” Woojin says, “Yesterday night was your first strike.” Jeongin makes a confused sound, “Every time you miss breakfast or dinner you land a strike and it’s up for records there,” Woojin explains pointing to the fridge where stuck a sheet of paper, nine names on it, Jeongin’s at the very end with a single red cross beside it, “Five strikes and you’re punished.”

“I see Hyunjin hyung with four and a half crosses.”

“Half crosses are for being more than fifteen minutes late.”

“There’s a set time?”

“You’ll just feel it in your bones after a while.” Woojin laughs out.

“Hyunjin hyung probably doesn’t still.” Both Jeongin and Woojin snicker.

“Out of all those strikes, three and a half are from running late.”

“Well,” Jeongin says, “What’s the punishment anyway?”

“For starters, you’ll have to help me around with tasks, cooking, shopping and you take on everyone else’s turns for cleaning and whatnot for a week, I’ll be there to assess whether or not you’re doing a good enough job.”

Jeongin laughs, a sudden burst of confidence, “Well if it means spending time with you it isn’t as much of a punishment is it hyung?” and Woojin promptly chokes on the soup he was tasting, turning around to stare at Jeongin, eyes-wide and Jeongin can clearly see the splotches of red forming on his cheeks from where he sits. _Yeah,_ he thinks, _it’s gonna be a good day._

Jeongin hears another familiar laugh, something he got properly acquainted with only last night, he honestly did think that it was his mind making up things about Minho yesterday but as his eyes land on him, he still looks as alluring as he did, long eyelashes, angular nose, pretty lips, and Jeongin suddenly feels the presence of ghost hands again and it’s almost as Minho knows exactly what he’s thinking as he squeezes his shoulder, taking the seat next to him, hands hovering over where Jeongin’s own hands lay comfortably on the table. Their eyes meet and Minho looks with a questioning gaze as if asking for permission to touch him and Jeongin gives him the smallest of nods. Panic settles in when Minho doesn’t and maybe Jeongin read all this wrong and wow what did he nod for? Is he dumb—Minho holds his hand, carefully lacing their fingers together and when Jeongin looks up, Minho has the brightest smile on his face.

“I can’t believe you’d be so weak against the youngest, hyung.” Minho says, exaggerated amusement in his tone and Woojin struggles to get rid of his flustered state as he lets out a weak protest.

And there in the kitchen, with Woojin cooking, ears still red as he tries to save his case all while Minho shakes his head and laughs, leaning into Jeongin, hands hanging down, knitted together, Jeongin, after all these days, finally feels like it’s a beginning of something new, and bubbly, and warm, not a wretched curse waiting for his downfall, Jeongin feels like this could be more than just something and maybe he’ll blame all the fairytales and stories and happy endings but he hopes above all—only for today will he entertain the thought—to find a home within the heart of these boys.

Breakfast was equally fun, in the few days, the initial awkwardness was gone, just boys talking over each other and stealing slices of bread. Jeongin realized in the few days that well, nine were a lot and he finds it amusing how he can never predict what’s gonna happen such as now, where Changbin, under the pretense of talking to Chan is slowly inching one of Felix’s already toasted and buttered bread away and how the first instinct Felix has when noticing it is to smack Changbin right on his head causing him to choke on whatever he was eating all while he continues to threaten him with a plastic butter knife (not a fine choice of weapon if you’re talking about killing someone, something about not enough threat.) He too feels Minho’s hand skirt around his plate and simply resorts to grabbing his hand and holding it instead of doing anything, he hears Minho let out a giggle, a silent whisper of _‘Oh, you caught me.’_ And Jeongin simply stuffs his mouth with the bread. They eat like that.

After breakfast, Jeongin finds himself back at his room, staring at the scrolled letter still lying at his desk. He sighs, better see his schedule and follow it. He carefully removes the ribbon and reads through it. Today it seems that his first lesson would be taken up by Chan on defense and that is somehow calming. He hasn’t had much interaction with Chan other than him asking about how Jeongin’s day went or is there is any problem but Chan just has that aura that makes Jeongin feel like nothing could hurt him, calm, level-headed and equally fun.

Jeongin hears a knock on his door and moves to open it and Chan stands there, blonde locks falling just above his eyes, “Hey,” He casually says, “You got the schedule.” Jeongin nods, lifting the piece of paper, “Great! Do you wanna go now or sometime later?”

“Whatever you say, hyung.” Jeongin mumbles, all shy suddenly.

Chan just laughs, “Do you have something you’d like to do now?” Jeongin replies by vehemently shaking his head. “Well, shall we go now then?” Jeongin nods this time and Chan laughs again, loud and clear, dimples showing and Jeongin can’t help but smile.

“Let’s go, hyung.”

They reach the practice chambers soon, the staircase beneath the door spiraling downwards. Chan made sure to carefully hold his hands as he led him down, something about the gaps between the stairs being too big and not wanting Jeongin to get hurt, the latter making his heart a bit happier to see Chan genuinely care. The room spreads itself to as far as Jeongin can see, various swords, knives and other weapons spread around.

“Okay,” Chan claps his hands, “So I think for the beginning, we’ll keep things simple. Physical fights, punches, kicks, everything in between then we’ll try weapons later.” Jeongin nods as Chan walks him through some of the different styles of punches also, telling him how they can be used in different situations. He demonstrates it first in the air and then on the punching bag and Jeongin can see how his muscles clench and relax as he moves in tightly clad pants and a sleeveless shirt. (Jeongin swears to god he doesn’t let his mouth fall open in awe as he stares at Chan’s muscles but Chan would say otherwise.)

It’s time for Jeongin to try these himself and he knows what to do. Chan comes and wraps his knuckles carefully just to make sure that it doesn’t hurt Jeongin all that much and Jeongin thanks him quietly. He observed Chan and he already knew the basics of things Chan just run him over, posture, fists, what would break your fingers and what would hurt the most. He grounds his feet at where he stands, fist curled and he swings. He feels his hand come in contact with the bag and he tenses his leg to ensure he doesn’t lose his balance.

Chan lets out an amused noise, “You’re good at this!”

Jeongin chuckles, “My brother used to train me too,” he says, rubbing his hands, “I had a knack of getting into trouble.” Though Jeongin isn’t all that good now, the sickness took away a huge chunk of his strength and along with that, he hasn’t had much practice with fighting recently, forgetting some of the finer details as such.

“You? You’re so cute and small, I can’t believe someone would even try to fight you.” Chan says and Jeongin positively turns a bit red.

“Come on, hyung! I am not that cute!” Jeongin pouts and Chan lets out a very vocal protest.

“Have you seen yourself, so cute!” He accentuates his words by pinching Jeongin’s cheeks, “Who wouldn’t fall for this lovely baby?” Chan laughs cutely, dimples showing.

“Well, the town’s elites for one.” He whispers, voice quiet but filled with bitterness. He still remembers getting toyed around by them in the fields or tormented in the school.

“Hey,” Chan’s voice is soft too but something stands out in his tone, Jeongin notes it as concern first, “Did they do something to hurt you?” Chan comes straight to the point and Jeongin realizes it’s anger that laces his words.

“Nothing much, hyung. Just used to hate me and well, took it out as children do. Stupid stuff like stealing my notebooks and throwing them around or purposely tripping me. The only time they took it way too far was when they punched me and I came home with purple bruises.” He feels Chan stiffen beside him, “That’s when Jonghyun hyung decided to teach me to fight since I wasn’t letting him go and beat them up.” He grins at Chan, “I beat them up alright! They never bothered me again.” Jeongin purposefully leaves out the part where he got beat up almost every day except it stayed hidden under his shirt because they didn’t want anyone to know, they kinda just slipped that day and went too far and he only ever fought back when they started aiming their insults and threats towards Yohan. He’d have to say though the sound of their bones breaking as he punched them was a bit satisfactory, they never did bother him after that.

Chan breaks into a grin too, locking Jeongin’s head in his arms and ruffling his hair, “That’s my baby!” he exclaims and Jeongin lets out a laugh, his heart a bit erratic at the fact that Chan just called him _baby_ and _my_ in the same sentence. “I can’t believe how stupid elites can be. Worry not, I won’t let anyone hurt you!” Chan puts on an exaggerated determined look and throws Jeongin into another fit of laughter as he pumps his fist, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

Jeongin simply extends his hand, his little finger poking out, “Promise?” He asks playfully, a surge of feelings hidden behind it, he remembers Jonghyun making the same promise and even if he still got pushed around, he remembers how at ease he stayed after that, a certain promise, that he won’t let Jeongin get hurt, he liked doing that, fooling his heart with playful promises that the other would forget soon but Jeongin wouldn’t.

Chan softly curls his finger around Jeongin’s, a firm hold, as he grins, eyes curved at the edges as he smiles, “I promise.” He says without any hesitation and nobody could blame Jeongin for forgetting to breathe for a second. Just like that, the two stand tied by a vague yet certain, playful yet serious promise. They stare at each other before laughing again, “Let’s go back to practice, yeah?”

Jeongin tries punching again, with Chan advising him on what would work the best, “The posture’s good for beginning but don’t tense your leg as much,” Chan points out, “If the target was moving and was able to block you, they’d probably land a good counterattack and you won’t be able to dodge.” Jeongin nods, listening closely, “Rather than that,” Chan’s hand pre onto his stomach, his heels digging into Jeongin’s ribcage and longs fingers spreading, “Tense this part instead. Also, use your knees and elbows for getting the hardest hits if you can’t properly land a punch.” Jeongin again resorts to nodding, a little flustered by how close Chan got. He tries it again, just as Chan told him to, he does stumble a bit but it does feel better, Chan all the while cheers from beside him. They continue for a while, going through with different things, Jeongin discovers that kicking is way harder than throwing a punch but he tries his best nonetheless.

Chan brought him a water bottle as Jeongin stood heaving, “Drink. I think this should do for today.” He hands him the bottle and Jeongin gulps it down in seconds, “Calm down, you’re gonna choke on it.” Chan says and a moment later Jeongin does indeed choke on it and Chan rushes to pat his head all while he laughs, “Told you so!”

Jeongin wipes the water off his mouth with his shirt, “Yeah, whatever hyung.” Jeongin rolls his eyes in the pretense of being annoyed.

“Come here you brat!” Chan exclaims before pouncing on Jeongin which he narrowly avoids breaking into a sprint, Chan following him close, scarily fast, “That’s no way to behave with your hyung!” He says from behind him, his laugh betraying whatever threatening aura he wanted his words to have and just when Jeongin tries to turn to avoid him, Chan extends his freakishly long hands and easily grabs him making Jeongin let out a squeal. Chan starts tickling him, making Jeongin bend in on himself as he can’t stop laughing, “ _Whatever, hyung_ huh?” Chan mocks him as he continues.

“S-Sorry, plea—” Jeongin cuts himself by laughing again because Chan’s just not stopping, “Please, hyung!” and Chan stops, a smug grin on his face as he hugs Jeongin from behind which makes Jeongin scrunch his nose in disgust, “Hyung, I’m sweaty, ew.” He whines. Chan lets him go for a second before he again locks Jeongin’s head in his arm, “Hyung!” He groans yet again, “You’re too mean.” And Chan just laughs.

“Wanna go home and eat some lamb chops?” Chan offers Jeongin, the grin still prominent on his face as he stares at Jeongin still trapped who just rolls his eyes before nodding, “You’ll have to wash up though.”

“I know!” Jeongin drags every word as he whines.

Okay, okay.” Chan tries his best not to laugh, “Let’s go!”

“Hyung, come on, you can’t be serious,” Jeongin says, exasperated, “Let go of me.” Yet, Chan continues to drag him like that, head trapped as he protests and whines, “Ouch.” He says emotionlessly, last-ditch effort as he tries to get Chan to leave him.

Chan just laughs. _Again._

As promised Chan and Jeongin devour the lamb chops Chan cooked while Jeongin was busy taking a shower. Chan keeps on laughing at everything and Jeongin realizes that he doesn’t hate the sound (quite the contrary, he’s falling in love with it.) They talk about equally dumb things, Chan just fits; he’s the kind of person who’d be everyone’s favorite, he laughs easily and looks so effortlessly beautiful, his curly locks are just so pretty on him Jeongin couldn’t help but run his hand through it when he was sitting beside him, _soft_ he thought as he let out a quiet gasp and Chan laughed (it sounds so flawless, Jeongin can’t stress it enough). They have fun, though Chan has to leave soon, buy groceries from the city and Jeongin has his next _lesson_ to follow with Seungmin. The block was blank so he wonders what they’re supposed to do, he’s better off asking Seungmin himself.

He says goodbye to Chan who on his ruffles his hair, “See you later baby.”

Jeongin’s heart does a thing, “Not a baby!” He whines as he continues to chew on the food.

A while later he moves away, dumping the plate into the sink, he feels sort of guilty for not taking on work around the house, Woojin told him it’s just cause they’d have to figure out a new routine for the tasks and they want Jeongin to rest around for a while but still, it feels like he’s the only one who’s not contributing and taking advantage of their kindness, he does want to help them, he’d feel more normal and fitted into this place if he did. Maybe he’ll talk about it to Woojin tomorrow morning.

Jeongin goes on to find Seungmin next which doesn’t seem to be all that difficult at all since the boy in question was spread out on the couch watching some show on the television.

“Seungmin hyung?” Jeongin tries to get his attention and Seungmin just lets out an affirmative hum to confirm that he’s hearing whatever Jeongin’s saying. “Um…I, we have a schedule together...?” He turns his sentence into more of a question at the end since he can’t seem to figure out what to call it, _lesson? Schedule?_ _Class? Hangout session?_

“Oh?” Seungmin says, surprised as he perks up on his elbow looking behind the couch at Jeongin, “Ah, the new schedule came!” He exclaims as he remembers while Jeongin nods.

“If you have something to do though I can just go into my room.” The witch did say it was just an outline and he guesses messing around with it won’t result in much though he did want to spend time with Seungmin since he rarely got any except some mornings when he woke up early and they chatted about different theories.

“No, no!” Seungmin’s quick to protest, “I was dying alone anyways, a little company would work. What do we gotta do?”

“Um, I don’t know, it was blank.”

Seungmin grins at that, “A free block then.” And Jeongin must’ve looked confused as Seungmin continued explaining, “We can do whatever we decide to do. Reading stuff, learning spells, defense, like I said, whatever.”

“Ah, makes sense.” Jeongin says, “So, what would you suggest we do?”

Seungmin’s smile widens even more, “Oh sweetie, I know just the thing.” He sits up on the couch, face leaning on the couch as he completely turns around to look at Jeongin, “I had hoped you would have the first shared block with me as a free one, so lucky!” Jeongin smiles too.

“Okay, hyung!”

“For now though,” Seungmin starts and Jeongin listens very carefully, hoping to follow whatever directions he gives him, “have you watched this movie?” He points to the TV and Jeongin didn’t expect that. He shifts his attention to television, focusing on the movie going on, yeah, doesn’t look like one he has seen before so he shakes his head. “Great then! Come here, I’ll restart it, it’s only five minutes in, I wanna cuddle!” Totally didn’t expect that but as Seungmin stares at him smiling, hands outstretched towards him, Jeongin can’t help but giggle too.

“Okay, hyung!”

They sit, huddled together on the couch for the entirety of the movie, laughing softly at the jokes, Seungmin making fun of the acting at points and Jeongin following his footsteps in the next scene. Jeongin, at the beginning of times, hated skinship but living with Yohan he slowly got used to it, he still gets flustered (not really but he’s not ready to admit that he’s been making a fool of himself around these boys just cause they are so imperfect in the best of ways and it isn’t all that fair to his poor heart.) but doesn’t mind it now. By the time the credit scene rolls in, Jeongin’s hanging on Seungmin, hands wrapped comfortably around him all while Seungmin just gently holds onto his arms.

“That was good.” Seungmin states and Jeongin nods along. “Wanna go on to the main event now?” He sits upright staring at Jeongin and as soon as Jeongin nods they are up on their feet and Seungmin’s dragging him out the door. Jeongin stumbles behind him, all the sudden urges of the boys in this house throw him off even though he reckons he’s a great runner.

“Hyung, what—?” He tries to say while he grounds each of his steps to ensure he doesn’t leave behind his shoe considering it isn’t even on his feet properly.

“’s surprise!” Seungmin yells back immediately, not noticing Jeongin’s struggle and still sprinting holding onto his arm. Jeongin soon notices that they aren’t going towards the back of the house, instead going straight through the path he remembers coming with Jisung on and it’s only a little while later that they stand at the end, the force field probably starting from there as he can see the forest.

Seungmin’s out of breath, taking a while to recover while Jeongin stands not far away, relatively in better shape, “What?” Seungmin forces it out between his breaths and Jeongin can’t resist snorting at him before he slaps his hand over his mouth. It was probably way too rude considering how Seungmin doesn’t even properly know him but before he berates himself further Seungmin speaks, in mock offense, “Are you making fun of your hyung?” and Jeongin relaxes, they’re just messing around so he playfully grins while he shakes his head and giggles out a ‘no’. “Ugh, maybe I should leave you alone in the forests to teach you a lesson.” Seungmin mumbles and all Jeongin does is brightly smile at him. Seungmin stares at him for a moment before dismissingly waving his hands, “You’re getting away just because you’re cute. But, just this time.”

Jeongin grins even wider, “We’ll see, hyung.” He looks around for a second, “So, what are we here for?” He asks and Seungmin mirrors the grin Jeongin was wearing earlier.

“First, we make a pact.” He firmly says and Jeongin looks at him in confusion before Seungmin extends his pinky finger and Jeongin just looks at him suspiciously, “Come on, do you wanna do it or not?”

“I don’t know what _it_ is though?” Jeongin questions and Seungmin just resorts to pushing his finger towards him again, more aggressive this time around, so Jeongin lets go and curls his finger around his.

“So, you promise to not talk to others about what we’re gonna do now?” Seungmin asks and Woah, what exactly are they going to do and why does this sound so risky.

“Is whatever we’re gonna not approved by others?” He asks Seungmin.

“Something like that.” He gets a shrug in response and suddenly he feels very unsure, is he even in a position to do something that could potentially piss the others off? Can he afford to do whatever Seungmin asks of him without being a burden? He thinks that if it indeed is something the others won’t accept doing maybe it’s dangerous and his clumsy self could land Seungmin in trouble and he doesn’t want that.

“I can hear you thinking from here.” Seungmin rolls his eyes, “If it calms you down, I did this with Hyunjin and Felix too and I guarantee it’ll be fun! Don’t you wanna spend time with your hyung?” His head tilts adorably, eyebrows scrunched together as he looks at Jeongin and who’s Jeongin to deny him.

“Well,” He sighs out, “I guess, I promise then.”

“Promise to?”

“Ugh, seriously?” He rolls his eyes yet Seungmin only continues to stare at him expectantly, “I promise to not tell the others.”

“Great!” Seungmin says, “Now grab my hand and don’t let go unless you want to dismembered.” Wow, what did Jeongin just agree to again? Seungmin holds on tight and then leaps into the forcefield and Jeongin watches his, eyes wide as he’s engulfed into the seemingly normal forest and disappears and before he can even register, he is tugged along with him. He closes his eyes, not knowing what to expect but he just stumbles into someone, he slowly opens his eyes only to look at a snickering Seungmin and he feels a bit embarrassed.

“Aw,” Seungmin coos, “Got scared? Don’t worry hyung’s got you.”

“No.” Jeongin scrunches his nose while Seungmin laughs and pinches his cheeks, still aggressively cooing. “Please, stop.” Jeongin’s still cringing and Seungmin lets him go. He straightens himself up, only now trying to notice the things around him. It’s still a forest, except it’s somehow more enchanting, the trees stand taller than the ones he saw with Jisung, the leaves lush green and around him are just bushes filled with wildflowers of all colors.

“Beautiful, right?” Seungmin asks, a grin on his face, “Told you it’d be nice.”

“We are outside the forcefield aren’t we?” The nod Seungmin gives is his answer and Jeongin sighs remembering how Jisung clearly advised him against going out of it even in the daytime.

“What? Did I tarnish your good boy records?” Seungmin cheekily asks, “Honestly, I didn’t even think you’d agree to come after I told you to promise me that, you look too much like the ‘too scared to bunk any periods’ kinda kid.”

“Hey, don’t go assuming things!” Jeongin defends himself, “I bunked classes, okay?”

“Which ones?”

Jeongin shrinks a bit, “S-sports.”

Seungmin laughs, “Look!”

“Whatever, it’s a period! It counts!” Jeongin crosses his arms and pouts.

Seungmin coos again, “Okay, okay whatever lets you sleep at night, Jeongin-ah.” Jeongin just whines in protest, not having any argument against it, “Well, let’s continue talking on the way up, ‘kay? It’s a good amount and it’ll take time, don’t wanna be here after sunset, we still have to reach the place I wanted to show you.”

“Oh, we’re hiking?” He asks, a little amused.

“What? You thought we were gonna make flower crowns here?” Seungmin says sarcasm dripping out of his words.

Jeongin scoffs, “It’s not that bad of an idea.”

Seungmin thinks for a bit, “Point.” He says, “Maybe we’ll get Hyunjin and Felix to join too next time.” And Jeongin’s heart does a thing hearing that there’s gonna be a next time, a smile on his lips that he can’t stop.

It’s just that he doesn’t have any particular memory of doing anything remotely interesting or dangerous with his friends, as Seungmin said Jeongin had been a little too much of a scared child to agree on something like sneaking out of his school and messing around in the farms, maybe all he needed was a little persuasion that his friends never did because he was Yang Jeongin, the goody-two-shoes who was a study machine, nothing interesting but here it feels like a different world. He doesn’t need to hold a reputation, everything’s new, a chance to rewrite himself just the way he is, awkward, clumsy, snarky, imperfect, he never got the chance to show his flaws to his friends back in town but here he stands opening up to these eight boys, a blank canvas, an opportunity to paint the prettiest picture and who’s Jeongin to refuse such an offer. To every part of living his life that he missed earlier, he’ll fulfill it now, sneaking out, breaking rules and everything in between. (With the eight boys his mind helpfully supplies and now, Jeongin is rather more thrilled knowing that.)

“Let’s go.” Jeongin says and they promptly start their journey upwards.

They reach the end of the trail fairly later, Seungmin still has to take a break to even out his breathing, taking support on a tree while Jeongin just stays slumped against another one, not exactly in need of rest but doesn’t mind it.

“Your stamina sucks, hyung.” Jeongin states.

“Shut up.” Seungmin barely wheezes out causing Jeongin to crack up laughing. Seungmin weakly smacks him before huffing and grabbing his hand to go off-trail. They come to a clearing and Seungmin steps aside to let Jeongin look at the place. Jeongin can’t help the gasp that leaves his mouth, there’s a damn waterfall in front of him, he has never seen one outside of his textbooks or television, they are standing at the edge from where the waterfalls and it’s so beautiful, he can see the wildflowers decorating the land, various colors just spread out _everywhere._ Jeongin hears a _click_ go off and he turns to stare at the sound, noticing that Seungmin has a camera in his hand.

“Sorry, couldn’t help it,” Seungmin says, “You don’t mind right? Me taking a picture of you?”

Jeongin smiles softly, “No, I don’t. Can I see?” He asks and Seungmin passes him the photo, Jeongin looks nice, a goofy smile on his face as he stares on the scenery in front of him, “Ah, you’re great at this hyung!” Jeongin laughs out and Seungmin’s shy all of a sudden.

“Yeah?” He says, “I like taking pictures. Something about capturing the moment, you see, there’s nothing quite like looking at a picture and feeling exactly what you felt when it was taken.” Jeongin nods for a moment, comfortable silence enveloping them before he grins.

“Hyung, Can I take a picture too?” He asks, pointing towards the camera.

Seungmin chuckles at his excitement, “Go ahead.” He gives him the camera and as soon as it’s in Jeongin’s hand he slings his arms over Seungmin, turning the camera to face them, ‘smile’ he yells and Seungmin lets out an amused laugh, head thrown back a bit and Jeongin laughs with him too as he clicks the picture and he steps back then, handing the camera back to Seungmin but he holds the picture, shaking it as it slowly forms and Jeongin just stares at it for a while when it develops, a wide smile appearing on his face as he looks at it, at both Seungmin and Jeongin looking so utterly happy, laughing like there’s no tomorrow.

“Here.” He extends the photo back to Seungmin, “For hyung to remember how happy I am to sneak out with him like this.” He smiles brightly and Seungmin takes it, stares at it too before he looks up, the bright smile adorning his face.

“Thank you, Jeongin.”

They settle down on the ground and return to their useless banters, most of them just Seungmin teasing Jeongin while he whines it, a little after which they start their trip back down, successfully entering the forcefield before sunset. They joke around as they enter the house, both going to the bathroom to clean themselves up before dinner and then just lazily lounging on the couch with Jisung and Minho playing checkers on the floor _. Today went well,_ Jeongin thinks preoccupied with laughing at Minho for making a dumb move and rolling on the floor in agony all while Jisung hollers in victory, Seungmin moving his head in disapproval beside him and Jeongin just decides to rest his head on his shoulder as he continues to laugh, _so fucking well._

\----X----

_Seungmin smiles looking at the photo, Jeongin and him laughing freely, the wildflowers decorating the background. He thanks Jeongin, hopes he knows the sincerity his words carry, hopes his voice isn’t shaking because Seungmin feels like crying as he stares at Jeongin._

_Seungmin places it very carefully into his pocket and returns to their conversation but he can still oddly feel the warmth of the picture, something that makes his breath catch once in a while, his heart so utterly content with its presence, so content as he makes Jeongin laugh yet again. It beats erratically here and there and Seungmin’s left to hide his gasps and hold back his tears because he hasn’t felt this complete in a long while._

_His mom did warn him, to mask his sensitive heart which he succeeded in, carefully layering it with thought out banters and numerous useless topics but occasionally he’d have to put it down and now he’s all but a weak boy overwhelmed because it’s as if he’s found what he’s missing and it’s right in front of him, with the prettiest smile as his shoulders shake and he tries to cover his mouth and he remembers._

_Remembers his mom again, standing in the kitchen, hugging him close, running her fingers through his hair as he cried because he had to leave her to come here and she told him that he’d find new people and Seungmin said he didn’t want to. She had just laughed, ‘Oh sweetie,’ she had talked softly, a smile on her face, ‘but you will, new people who you would want to show yourself to, who’d love you for all you are, you and your extra sensitive heart.’ She had poked his chest playfully, ‘Doesn’t it sound compelling, Seungmin? To make moments you’d cherish for a lifetime, to have all breath knocked out of it when everything fits,’ She had chuckled a bit, hands stilling for a moment and Seungmin had looked at her to find her eyes shining, ‘To find a home in the hearts of people who you’ll have beside you forever.’_

_Seungmin didn’t understand then, his stubborn heart too fixed on cursing out the universe for messing with him. Later, when he encountered the other boys, slowly getting to know them, bit by bit, as they opened up and he did, slow, very slow, there’s still so much he has to know about the others, the others have so much to know about him, about how he feels too much and he wants them to accept him as what he truly is and for the first time in a long while it’s not fear that makes a hole in heart as he feels what he does, it’s just warmth, something he guesses would have to do with the way Jeongin’s smile could light up the entirety of the place, the need to start opening up because how long will he stand behind the carefully constructed walls._

_Jeongin fits. Fills the blank space Seungmin felt, which most likely everyone felt. Seungmin’s happy, so happy he could cry, almost does when Jeongin softly holds his hand on the way back home._ Home, _it’s closer to being a home today than it was yesterday._

_A slight shift, a slight nudge, a slight change and Yang Jeongin in the center of it and Seungmin’s more happy than not._

_—A little something about what Seungmin feels_

\----X----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry for the huge gap in the update. I completely scraped up this chapter before rewriting it because it didn't sit all that well and it might still seem a bit forced but I'm trying my best to break out of this slump. Also, sorry for not replying to the comments on my last chapter, somehow the emails notifying me about it ended up in spam and I didn't think about checking it. Than you so much for leaving such lovely comments, I hope you know how happy these comments make me and all I've been doing since yesterday is going through them again and again because they are just so nice and supportive and I can't thank all of you enough.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this story was inspired by one of the gems I found in my school library. I seriously don't remember the title but if I remember correctly it started with the same sentence that '---- was in the fields when the letter arrived' and the main character also received a letter from the witch and was sick prior to this. I really liked where the story was heading 2-3 pages in but then our period ended and since exams were starting the library wasn't issuing books so, I thought I'll remember the title but fast forward to now and I forgot like the dumbass I am. If anyone has any idea what that book's title is, let me know? I'll be forever grateful!   
> Anyways, I started hardcore stanning Stray Kids like a month back ((because I'm an absolute sucker for strong relationships within groups and they go so well. Not to mention, their music and lyrics are so good) and I don't know they seemed perfect for this story.  
>  If the pacing gets really slow and irritating do tell me I'll try to improve it! I hope you'll like it!


End file.
